Ineos Grenadier vs. Land Rover Defender Compared: Battle of the Boxy British Off-Roaders
The 2024 Ineos Grenadier is a vehicle made in response to Land Rover halting production of its classic Defender
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MotorTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to another MotorTrain Comparison Test video.
00:22I'm joined by my colleague Miguel.
00:24Miguel, tell me about the two vehicles that you've chosen for this test.
00:26Yeah, so two iconic off-roaders.
00:28On the one hand, we have the Land Rover Defender, long-standing nameplate,
00:32iconic British off-roader, new generation a few years ago,
00:36and now it's basically like a modern take on off-road.
00:39And then we have the Ineos Grenadier,
00:41not a very familiar nameplate for a lot of Americans,
00:44but if you look at the styling, it's basically the Defender of yesteryears.
00:47And so we have two basically off-roaders powered by an inline-six engine,
00:52and we took them out here to see how they perform,
00:54and we're going to talk about how they do on the trail and off the trail as well.
00:57That's right. Yeah, it's a really interesting comparison test,
00:59even though maybe on the surface it doesn't look like a natural comparison, right?
01:04But we've got a very interesting interplay between these two vehicles.
01:09The Grenadier, you look at the styling and it's really attractive.
01:13It's boxy, it has rounded headlights, it has steel wheels,
01:16very upright position, and it has a lot of off-road and macho looks as well.
01:21The snorkel, you have a ladder on the back.
01:24And so it's just like a lot of details that just make it very cool looking.
01:27Old school cool, right.
01:29Old school look, exactly.
01:30And it's worth bearing in mind, this is the Trailmaster edition of the Grenadier.
01:34So with that, we get things like cloth seats and, you know,
01:37there's a little bit more ruggedness there.
01:39I think you can get another version that has kind of slight more refinement,
01:42leather, you know, details on the inside.
01:44By comparison, the Defender, and it's worth saying this is a 130,
01:48and this is quite luxurious on the inside, isn't it?
01:50Oh, yeah.
01:51You step in and even from the outside, right away, you know, this is luxury.
01:55This is premium.
01:56Compared to the Ineos, which is very old school,
01:58it's kind of like a throwback also to airplane cabins.
02:01You have a lot of switches, manual switches, also a lot of overhead controls.
02:06But it is two very different takes.
02:08And yeah, one might be thinking, well, you know,
02:10these don't really go against each other.
02:12The Defender is more expensive too.
02:13But when you look at them in paper, it's like, I mean, two British off-roaders,
02:18you know, both powered by an inline six engine.
02:21I think they fit that off-road persona that buyers are looking for.
02:25Two sides of the same coin,
02:27kind of going after the same market, as odd as that maybe sounds.
02:31So, yeah, let's dig into it.
02:32Let's talk about the trails that we tackled today.
02:34It started off rather nice and smoothly, right?
02:37We were on these nice fire roads, a little bit of rock, a little bit of sand.
02:41You started off in the Ineos.
02:43Correct.
02:44How did it perform?
02:45I mean, it was mostly very good.
02:48The ride, you can feel that it was bumpy, but it was nice.
02:52You know, like you felt good in it.
02:54What I didn't like, though, is the steering.
02:56The steering, you know, the steering ratio is very long.
03:00So you have to make a lot of turns to get the truck to turn.
03:03You're basically doing a lot of maneuvers.
03:06Even if the trail is going straight, you know,
03:08you're still trying to like get the car going on a straight line.
03:12And so it gets you, I don't want to say it gets you tired,
03:14but you do have to like, you know, you have to be paying attention.
03:16You have to concentrate.
03:18You have to concentrate.
03:19Speaks, I guess, to the old school ethos of the engineering underneath this body.
03:24Exactly. All of that was done on purpose.
03:26You know, I do like the interior on the Defender.
03:28It's wonderful.
03:29I mean, it's sleek.
03:31It's modern. It's premium.
03:32It has a ton of space.
03:34You do feel like you are riding how you have a commanding position.
03:37And I feel like in the Grenadier, the space might be a little tighter.
03:41Visibility is very good in this, though.
03:43It is, except towards the back.
03:45You will.
03:45You can't see anything through that rear window with the ladder.
03:49Full size spare in the back.
03:51And that is where I personally, as a consumer,
03:54would maybe start to get ever so slightly frustrated
03:56were I to buy one of these, because as we've said,
03:59the idea was take a Defender, modernize it and be kind of unapologetic about that.
04:03But there are certain things that I think we've come to expect
04:07either from a comfort and a convenience perspective
04:10or because they genuinely make driving safer.
04:13And those are things like blind spot indicators,
04:15which this car does not have.
04:16And I think in that instance, an electronic rear view mirror
04:19with a little camera.
04:20That would be so much better.
04:22When we were on the road in this car,
04:24I found that when a car was quite close to me,
04:26I could barely see it.
04:27And that is quite disconcerting.
04:29Yeah. Also, no 360 degree view camera,
04:32which is useful not only for when you're parking on a regular parking lot,
04:37but also on the trail.
04:38You want to know what's around you.
04:40And you can do that in the Defender and you can't do that in the Grenadier.
04:43Back to the video in just a moment.
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05:18Speaking of which, the trail did start to get a little bit more hairy
05:22for us after a while, right?
05:23We encountered some rock fields and some boulders and things like that.
05:26Yeah, exactly.
05:27And what I liked about it is that, you know, the question here isn't
05:30can the Defender do a better job than the Grenadier?
05:33Because both of them got over the obstacles, right?
05:35It's not like one of them got stuck or anything like that.
05:37No, both made it through exactly the parts of the trail
05:40with the same struggle, right?
05:42But they both made it.
05:43Now, which one did a better job making it through the trail?
05:47And I think that's the Defender.
05:48I think so too, yes.
05:49Right? Like the easiness of just like engaging everything, all the controls.
05:54The air suspension, the electronic modes, all of those things.
05:58It just made it a lot easier to go through.
06:01Whereas in the Ineos, you were like, you know, there were obstacles
06:04and maybe they weren't as tough as they would seem,
06:07but it had a harder time getting through them.
06:09That's right.
06:10And so I think the Defender proved itself that, you know, it is,
06:13I think it has the DNA, right?
06:15Like Land Rover has been off-roading for decades
06:18and they know exactly how an off-road vehicle should perform.
06:22And the Defender shows that.
06:23Exactly.
06:24It must be quite vindicating for the designers and the engineers at JLR
06:28to know that ultimately this vehicle came along and replaced
06:32the original Defender that had been in constant production
06:35for some 68 years, I think it was.
06:37And it must be vindicating to know that that does genuinely improve upon the formula.
06:41And that's kind of what I feel here.
06:43However, that doesn't mean that this in any way failed
06:46because Ineos set out to modernize,
06:49but keep that integral Defender charm with their new vehicle, with the Grenadier.
06:54And you've got to say that for all intents and purposes, they've done that, right?
06:57It's still a success by the merit that they set,
07:00by those parameters that they set themselves.
07:03I mean, since it's launched here in the US,
07:05which has been like, what, maybe like six months ago or so,
07:08I've seen a ton of them on the road.
07:09You too, very surprisingly.
07:11Like you said, I mean, the way that this car is built,
07:13it was all in that purpose, right?
07:15It was all to kind of like serve that audience that wanted to get the retro styling
07:21with a modern take inside,
07:22but also kind of like with those little quirks that you're talking about
07:26that are kind of like a throwback to the past.
07:29Sometimes us car enthusiasts are, you know,
07:32complaining that cars are too modernized now
07:34and software-defined vehicles are the next thing, right?
07:36And so you lose kind of like what the car felt like, the innos.
07:40This will give you that.
07:41Yes, exactly.
07:42But maybe to a fault.
07:43After a while, maybe you're thinking,
07:45my arms are tired and I've been rattled around a little bit,
07:48whereas, you know, in a vehicle like the Defender,
07:51you're just treated to that little bit more refinement, that progress, right?
07:54Progress ultimately serves to improve the experience.
07:57And that's kind of the vein in which we're comparing these two vehicles.
08:00We're not maybe directly comparing them,
08:02but we're saying which one ultimately does the better job within its wheelhouse.
08:06I think that's also the Defender.
08:08Yes.
08:08You know, the Defender takes that spot.
08:10Yes.
08:10It improves, it builds on the formula.
08:12And I think that's a key for a comparison like this,
08:16a trail like one we were on.
08:17You still want to be challenging, right?
08:19You don't want a vehicle that just climbs over anything and freezes up.
08:23And, you know, as a driver, you're like,
08:24you don't feel anything.
08:26Right.
08:26Where's the fun?
08:26I mean, we struggled on this trail.
08:29It's a big vehicle, but it works.
08:31That's exactly right.
08:31It works.
08:32And so that makes a key difference.
08:34The Ineos works too.
08:35Like I said, it went over the same obstacles.
08:37Absolutely.
08:38On the times where we needed a spotter, we got the spotters.
08:40We were able to go through and follow the line to get through the obstacles.
08:44It's just, you know, I would be happy to drive this for like three days.
08:47That's right.
08:47I wouldn't be happy to drive this for every day or for like the next year or next five years.
08:52Whereas in the Defender, I would be very happy to drive this on the trail, on the road.
08:56You know, it has a space.
08:57It has everything that you'd really need in it.
09:00I would say that I, in my time with this vehicle, have not found a concession.
09:04I've not found something that doesn't do well.
09:06It can be a perfect family car.
09:08There's tons of room back there with that extended rear space.
09:11And as you've said, on the trails of varying difficulties, it handled remarkably well.
09:16Exactly.
09:17So Joe, I think, you know, after testing everything that we did today,
09:21I think the clear winner of this comparison is the Land Rover Defender.
09:23I mean, both on-road, off-road, it outperformed the Ineos.
09:28The Ineos does a very good job.
09:29It's a great performer.
09:31But I think the Defender, it just, you know, takes everything and not chop.
09:35And that's why it's a winner of this comparison.