Ineos Automotive will support the launch of its rugged Grenadier 4×4 in Australia with 28 retail sites, many of which will fittingly be based in areas beyond the city limits.
Full tech specs and official pricing for the Grenadier can be found here, and the company will open the order books during May.
Update 17/05/2022: This story, originally from late April, has now been pulled forward, with news that order books for reservation holders (‘hand raisers) have just opened.
Australia is currently home to the third-largest source of reservations (not the same as a final binding order) anywhere in the world.
Set to hit local shores in small numbers during the fourth quarter of 2022 before a supply ramp-up, the Grenadier is both a sort of spiritual successor to the original Land Rover Defender and a contemporary rival for the Toyota LandCruiser 70.
Accordingly the company today announced its launch network of sales agents – not quite the same thing as conventional dealers – with heavy representation in its regional “heartland”.
Towns or regional centres that will have their own Ineos sales and service points will include: Ballarat, Dubbo, Geelong, Geraldton, Mackay, Mildura, Orange, Rockhampton, Shepparton, Tamworth, Toowoomba, Townsville, and Warragul.
Among the launch partners are dealer groups, but also 4×4 specialists and even agricultural equipment dealers.
To put Australia’s standing into perspective, the 28 sites here will form part of a planned network of 200 sales and service sites in 50 countries by the end of 2022.
Ineos calls its appointed dealers “partners”, and will use the agency business model. That means its partners will be responsible for displaying stock, handling test drives, and customer after-sales support.
But Ineos will control inventory and pricing, and pay these partners with a “straight-forward commission”. This is very much in the style of Mercedes-Benz and Honda.
Ineos says it’s now working with these retailers “to set up their outlets and be ready to welcome customers in the next few months”. That process includes “an intensive training programme for the sales agents and workshop technicians”, it adds.
Ineos Automotive’s head of Asia-Pacific, the Melbourne-based Justin Hocevar, said setting up the network was vital to getting the business up and running.
“We are committed to working with partners who hold the right credentials to represent the Ineos Automotive brand not just within metropolitan cities, but in the heartland of Ineos Automotive’s customer base – regional Australia.
“Australia is a vast country that’s just waiting to be explored. We welcome our highly dedicated partners who are just as passionate and excited for the launch of the Ineos Grenadier in Australia later this year,” Mr Hocevar said.
“Having the full confidence in a thoroughly engineered off-road vehicle needs to be backed by the support of a comprehensive network. Our partners will be invaluable in ensuring Australians can explore this great land with the assurance of help, guidance and service wherever your Grenadier may take you.”
The retail partners will form the backbone of the service network in the country, Ineos adds, with additional geographical coverage provided by a selection of accredited service outlets. More on that here.
Background
While final pricing is not confirmed, Ineos has previously indicated a starting price for the most basic two-seat version of $84,500 plus on-road costs. The five-seater versions are expected to command a modest $1000 (ish) premium.
With final specs not announced and the factory in late stages of gearing up, Ineos says it now holds north of 15,000 reservations worldwide. It’s withholding the Australian-specific figure.
Local buyers have been able to put down an $800 refundable deposit to lock in a reservation since October 2021, putting them at the front of the queue when it comes to placing their order on the more detailed configurator going live (with pricing) in April.
Those who decide to proceed, configure and order will then be required to put down a $5000 deposit, or $4200 for those who already put down the aforementioned reservation fee.
From there, a few weeks out from their vehicle’s build slot, the sum will then be converted to non-refundable status – the rationale being that someone may configure their vehicle in a particular fashion that makes it hard to on-sell.
The $800 “hand raisers”, who may go on to be $5000 order holders, have in some cases had a chance to get inside a Grenadier development ‘2B’ prototype, which has been making its way around Australia as part of a customer roadshow – regional locales included.
However none have been able to drive production-ready Grenadiers because they don’t exist.
Production Grenadiers are going to be built at an old Mercedes-Benz (Smart) plant in Hambach, France, since purchased by Ineos. The bespoke development vehicles were built by Magna in Austria.
The Grenadier project is the brainchild of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the British billionaire engineer and chairman of multinational petrochemical giant Ineos.
The official story says Ratcliffe was hanging out in London’s Grenadier pub in 2017, bemoaning Land Rover’s decision to kill the old Defender and replace it with the more modern and luxurious new SUV model.
Australia is considered internally to be a “core launch market” for the ladder-frame, rigid axle Grenadier alongside Europe, the US and South Africa, meaning locals get the sort of priority access to vehicles many brands would crave
The old Land Rover Defender lookalike will be sold as a body-on-frame 4×4 wagon at first, with low-range gearing, multiple diff locks, retuned BMW inline-six engines, and stripped-back off-road suspension, “designed and built to handle the world’s harshest environments”.
A box-section ladder frame up 4mm thick walls is expected to feature – no monocoque here.
The Grenadier is expected to have beam axles front and rear made by Italy’s Carraro, supplier to tractor-makers John Deere and Massey Ferguson. They’ll support multi-link suspension with separate long-travel Eibach coils and ZF dampers, and panhard rods.
There’ll also be permanent 4×4 rather than part-time, a mechanical transfer case for low-range, and diff locks front, centre and rear. Payload must be at least a tonne before the road cars are signed off, and the towing capacity target is 3.5-tonnes.
Engines will be supplied by BMW. Both are 3.0-litre inline-six cylinder donks, one that runs on petrol and the other on diesel. They’re codenamed B57 and B58 if you want to head to Wikipedia for more.
Both will be linked up to a ZF eight-speed automatic transmission as the sole choice – a key difference from the manual-only LandCruiser 70 and old Defender.
Ineos Automotive Australia Pty Ltd will be a factory-backed operation rather than an independent licensed distributor.
The company appointed Mr Hocevar to head up its Asia-Pacific operations, who previously ran Mini Australia and Renault Australia, and was a senior executive at Jaguar Land Rover and BMW Motorrad.
It will establish a network of franchise dealers and service centres, but use an agency model – meaning it will own all its new and demo stock until the customer takes delivery, which means set prices and access to national inventory from anywhere.
Ineos has also cut a deal with various Bosch Service Centres in remote areas. These mechanics will get training and the same access to parts and data as an official Ineos agent in bigger population centres.
On the parts front, those who wish to work on their own vehicles will also be able to get technical support from Ineos HQ, and access to online interactive 3D workshop manuals and parts catalogues.
Ineos showroom appointments
- Aaron Brain Motors, Shepparton
- Mackay City Auto Group, Mackay
- Armstrong Auto Group, Toowoomba
- Magic Enterprises, Geraldton
- Autoworld, Ballarat
- Magic Enterprises, Perth
- Brian Hilton Motor Group, Central Coast
- Noosa Auto Group. Noosa
- Brighton Automotive Holdings, Melbourne
- Northstar Mildura Motors, Mildura
- Buckby Motors, Launceston
- Pickering’s Auto Group, Townsville
- Caravana, Brisbane
- Purnell Motors, Sydney
- DC Motors, Rockhampton
- Rex Gorell, Geelong
- Fraser’s, Newcastle
- Rolfe Motors, Canberra
- Fraser’s, Wollongong
- SLRV Expedition Vehicles, Gold Coast
- John Oxley Motors, Port Macquarie
- Tony Leahey Motor Group, Orange
- JT Fossey, Tamworth
- Warragul City Motors, Gippsland
- Kerry’s Automotive Group, Adelaide
- Westco Motors, Cairns
- Kerry’s Automotive Group, Darwin
- Western Plains Automotive, Dubbo
MORE: 2022 Ineos Grenadier review: Prototype ride-along
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MORE: 2022 Ineos Grenadier arrives in Australia
