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Not smart, digital and electric: If the chemical giant Ineos now enters the car business with the Grenadier, Tesla & Co can sit back and relax. For once, no start-up is rehearsing a revolution, but a lateral entrant rolls backwards - and becomes the winner of hearts with a rustic off-road vehicle.
The earth is still quite loose around the new company signs, the fresh paint still seems damp in some corners and sometimes the hosts even get lost. But a new chapter is beginning in Hambach these days. Because there, where Daimler has built what is probably the most urban car in the country to date, the complete opposite will be rolling off the assembly line in the future: primeval forest instead of urban jungle is the motto when the Smart dem Grenadier make room.
rarity
This time, the project is not backed by a start-up, but by the British chemical giant Ineos, and instead of an electric or at least particularly smart car, it is building an old-school off-road vehicle and is based on a role model that could hardly be more respected: the Land Rover defense However, not on the current model, but on that angular original meter of the off-road community, which was built almost unchanged for over half a century and then discontinued in 2016 to take account of new regulations.
"Without successor", as Jim Ratcliffe would probably say. He is the boss of Ineos, one of the richest men on the island, as a passionate Africa adventurer also an exquisite Defender connoisseur - and of course the owner of at least one Land Rover from the very first series. Therefore, his judgment about what Land Rover is selling as a successor should also be easy for him: Thanks to modern electronics and conventional body construction, the new Defender may very well have become a comfortable everyday car and there is probably hardly an SUV that is off the asphalt beats better. But the new Defender is no longer an off-road vehicle for the purists.
That's why Ratcliffe just took a billion pounds out of the coffers, took matters into his own hands and launched Ineos Automotive. The idea came to him in his favorite London pub, where the billionaire not only sketched the concept on the back of a beer mat, but also found the right name when looking at the facade of the pub: Grenadier.
Test drive, but right
That was a good five years ago and a lot has happened since then: Ratcliffe bought the plant in Hambach and ordered 30.000 engines a year from BMW. In the meantime, Magna has also developed a car for him that is much closer to the old Defender than its successor - and still passes as a reasonably modern car.
In order to prove this, his project manager Dirk Heilmann asks for a maiden voyage just a stone's throw from Hambach and sends his prototypes out into the wild in proper style. You can believe that the car will perform on the street and in the city. After all, it's not rocket science. But whether the Grenadier is really fit to become the new king of the jungle, he is supposed to prove himself here in the knee-deep mud ruts of a former mine.
Unstoppable
The 3,0 liter six-cylinder diesel throws 249 hp and above all 550 Nm into the scales, the coarse-grained skins on the 18-inch wheels bite deep into the mud and accompanied by a sonorous rumble, the 2,5-tonner digs undeterred Ahead. The dirt sprays meters high, it gets loud and when the profiles clog, even the Grenadier starts to lurch a bit. But nobody can stop him: where there is a will, there is no need for a way - and in the worst case there is also a winch.
However, the driver has to think and steer a bit, because unlike the new Defender or the Mercedes G-Class, the Grenadier is a fairly analogue all-wheel drive vehicle and refrains from modern extras such as different driving programs for different surfaces. There is therefore nothing more to adjust than the three locks and the reduction.
Defender in large
Even if it is constructed in a very similar way to the old Defender with an aluminum body on a ladder frame, rigid axles, steel springs and conventional power distribution, the Grenadier does not appear as coarse off the asphalt as the original, which also means a certain increase in comfort on the street closed. Nevertheless, it gives you a much more feeling for the hustle and bustle during the mud fight than the modern SUVs, which want to pass as off-road vehicles with their electronic finesse alone.
The whole thing is wrapped up in a loving - well - reinterpretation of the Defender design - only half a size larger: An angular but flat hood with circular headlights in the face, distinctive fenders, the pronounced shoulder over the entire flank and windows in the roof - outside The almost five meter long Grenadier may look like how the traditionalists among Land Rover fans would have liked the new Defender to look. The Ineos design is almost a copy of the original, with the exception of the all-round railing for attaching items of equipment and the now longitudinally divided rear door with the spare wheel attached on the outside and the ladder to the roof.
No wonder Land Rover went to court against the Grenadier - and for Ratcliffe, it's no wonder they lost resoundingly.
New design was necessary
A look into the cabin is enough for that. There, the British go their own way and treat the Grenadier to a cockpit that cleverly balances between an excavator and a Boeing - robust, indestructible and safe to use even with big hands, but with large screens and control panels right up to the roof. On the other hand, the old Defender seems ripe for the museum.
Of course, Ratcliffe doesn't want to go against the course of history or technical progress either. That's why, for sensitive markets, for example, he also bought the in-line six-cylinder petrol engine from BMW, which now has 285 hp, and is even considering a fuel cell with Hyundai.
25 years of experience and still in its infancy
But before that comes, they first have to get the combustion engines running - and get the plant fit for it. The conversions are less than feared, because Daimler itself invested another half a billion in Hambach to build the EQA there, which ended up staying in Rastatt. But even if the employees in Alsace now have at least 25 years of experience, they start all over again with the Grenadier, says the head of production: Not only is the concept different and the construction, but also the components are not comparable - if only for themselves because of their size and weight.
And as if that wasn't enough, they continue to assemble the Smart next door as a subcontractor until Daimler discontinues the series and the Chinese reinvent the brand with a compact SUV.
Incidentally, they should also find someone in Hambach who will search the area around the plant - because every now and then you can still find the old signs in the structurally weak region. However, they have already lost the "Bienvenue a Smartville" - and if the Grenadier has his way, they could soon write "Welcome to the Jungle" over the goal instead.