Ineos Grenadier Fieldmaster Test: Spite Defender

From the March/April 2025 issue of Car and Driver.

We all have knocked back a pint at the local bar while mulling how to build a better car than the one in our driveway. Daydreaming about perfecting cars is universal, but Jim Ratcliffe apparently takes it more seriously than most. He’s the British billionaire who tried to buy the tooling for the Land Rover Defender (the old one, not the new one) so he could update it to meet modern regulations. When Land Rover passed, he did the costliest “Hold my beer” we’ve ever heard of and created the Ineos Grenadier.

It looks familiar. From some angles, the body-on-frame Ineos is all Defender 110 (again, the old one). From others, it screams G-wagen louder than an influencer upon being asked, “What’s the first thing you’re gonna buy with all of that YouTube money?” The Grenadier has a 115.0-inch wheelbase, five seats, and, in Fieldmaster trim, two standard safari windows that can vent open or be removed, should you want to eliminate the security that glass offers while you take in Serengeti wildlife. The base version of the Grenadier starts at $73,100, less than half the starting price of a Mercedes-Benz G550 and about 10 grand more than the least costly new Defender 110.

The exterior of the Fieldmaster trim we borrowed sports small graphics inspired by three flags: a Union Jack for obvious reasons, a German flag for the “engineering rigor” it claims to have, and a French flag for its assembly home in Hambach (depending on when your geography book was printed, that could be a French or a German city). Bolted between the front fenders, which will support a standing adult, is a BMW 3.0-liter inline-six connected to a ZF eight-speed automatic. The turbocharged engine is good for 281 horsepower, and the powertrain earns exceptional marks for smoothness and refinement. It’ll pull the 5901-pound SUV to 60 mph in 7.3 seconds and hit a governed 102-mph top speed. The 1993 North America–spec Defender 110 lumbered to 60 mph in 12.3 seconds on its way to a max of 89 mph. An inline-six Defender 110 (the contemporary one) finds 60 in 6.3 seconds, while the new Toyota Land Cruiser is nearly a half-second behind.

Straight-line acceleration hardly defines this segment. With stubby overhangs and the departure angle of an F-22 Raptor with its afterburner lit, the Grenadier is clearly designed to excel when the pavement ends. Live axles provide the durable traction off-roaders love, and a ground clearance of over 10 inches gives the go-ahead to clomp down most any two-track. The on-road ride is neither exceptional nor brutal.

A score of 517 on the ramp travel index (RTI) puts the Grenadier well below the new Land Cruiser’s 634 but above the Defender 130’s 331. Not that front and rear locking differentials would help in the RTI articulation game, but they are available as part of a $2850 Rough pack, which also includes BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2 tires. Far less aggressive Bridgestones still sing a boisterous tarmac tune, contributing to 73 decibels in the cabin at 70 mph. Both the Land Cruiser and the Defender 130 are better here, with a comparably subdued 68 and 67 decibels.

The driving position faithfully channels an old Defender. You sit upright on comfortable chairs above a narrow pedal box, and a wide console separates driver and passenger. It’s a bit of a climb into the cabin, and there are no grab handles on the B-pillars to assist second-row passengers. Build quality, inside and out, gets an A+.

The main instrument display, centrally located above a compass, is part of a 12.3-inch touchscreen that conveys both vehicle speed and infotainment doings. Directly in front of the driver is a three-by-11 matrix of red, yellow, green, and blue warning and indicator lights. Typically, warning lights wouldn’t get a mention, but most cars don’t beep annoyingly every time you break what the car thinks is the posted speed limit. Six keystrokes deactivate the Euro-regulation dingleberry but illuminate a bright-yellow warning icon.

While silencing the speed nanny, you’ll also want to deactivate lane-keeping assist because the steering is not great. It’s slow (3.9 turns lock-to-lock) and not particularly attuned to going straight. Making matters worse is a near-total lack of self-centering, a byproduct of the suspension geometry’s lack of adequate caster angle. So, every time you make a turn, you then have to return the wheel to center.

As a modern take on an old car, the Grenadier has nostalgic charm. There are only two cupholders, and they weren’t designed with Stanley or Yeti in mind. The ZF electronic shifter sits juxtaposed between a mechanical hand brake and an actual lever that reaches deep into the Grenadier’s bowels to control the two-speed transfer case. The door handles and thumb-press release are like those on a G-wagen and make a sound so special that you’ll slam the door a second time just for aural pleasure. And the bevy of switches and knobs on the instrument panel and the overhead console offer straightforward operation. However, the simple luxuries of passive entry and push-button start, which would greatly increase convenience, aren’t even options on this $82,385-as-tested SUV.

There are a lot of peculiarities and annoyances here (e.g., 14-mpg observed fuel economy), but we know that most of these shortcomings were intended to give the Grenadier character. Ineos succeeds in delivering an off-road wagon that has the curb appeal of a classic. Cheers to the hope that this single narrow focus gins up sufficient sales so Ineos sticks around long enough to inspire another dream.

Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com