Over the last 3 weeks, Ineos has been doing a press tour in Scotland. Tomorrow the press embargo is lifted. Well it's tomorrow in AU,
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-rev...enadier-review

 

Press embargo on what?

Anyhow, hopefully they'll start delivering vehicles and someone will post an owners review on one of the Land Rover forums

 

Man. I love the cockpit and interior in this and these photos in the review show a lot of detail I’ve not yet seen Very James Bond.

 

Too expensive for what it is imo, it appears to be less capable on-road AND off-road than the current Defender while also being more expensive than a well equipped 110.

I’d be interested in a basic SWB at about $50K-$55K as my 90 S with air suspension, leather, cold weather pack, and sunroof came in at $65K. I can’t imagine paying almost twice as much for a vehicle that appears to be worse in every way; if my calculations are correct it has worse ground clearance and angles.

Hoping someone explains how I’m wrong because I do want to like it.

 

Prices in that article are in Australian Dollars (100,000 AU$ are approximately 70K US$ at today's exchange rate.) Not sure Grenadier prices for the US market have been announced yet, but a decently equipped petrol Defender 110 in Australia, comparably equipped to our US versions, starts at 80k and easily gets well north of 100k. A fully loaded 110X costs over AU$140Ks, and that's not even for a V8, just the standard P400 engine...

It's no bargain either, but the Grenadier doesn't appear to be extravagantly priced for that market. The quantity and price of its available accessories in particular makes me want to cry (of jealousy...) Factory rock sliders for about US$1100 after conversion? I paid more than twice that much for aftermarket ones for my Defender, voiding all types of warranties in the process.

 

The more time I review the data and drive my P300, the new Defender and the Grenadier are not comparable. The new Defender is more like a modern SUV while the Grenadier is more of an old-school truck. If you wanted to align it with a current vehicle than it would be a G wagon. And people have stated it rides better than a G wagon. People that will like it will be people looking for something that has less convenience but less likely to have a fault code that makes you sit on side of the road. I am not saying the new defender is not reliable but we all know when a gremlin pops up that it tends to be a bigger headache.

 

I placed my advanced deposit a year ago this month; I'm definitely looking forward to driving it. At the time I placed the order I'd had the Defender about 7 months and if the Grenadier had been available right then I'd probably have done the deal right away. But now, I've gotten much more used to the Landie and its off-road capabilities and I'm not so sure. It will be an interesting decision, that's for sure. If they ever actually arrive.

By the way, review in Autoweek today:

Grenadier is Headed to America

 

l love the looks of the Grenadier.

l may even swap the Defender for one eventually if it's still worth a decent amount in part exchange.

l love my Defender but the total dependency on electronics concerns me in the long term. Even the interior light is microprocessor controlled.

 

I like the way it looks outside but the interior gives me anxiety and appears to have been designed by someone with zero experience in user interfaces.

I do like the pre-wired accessory switches (and wish that the Defender had them) and the more comprehensive accessory list. But It's hard to see living with 947 manual switches in the interior if you are not also a pilot.

 

Man, I'm exactly the opposite. I can SEE individual switches with labels on the face of them. Functions that are hidden layers deep in screen interfaces are so terribly much harder, and nearly impossible for occasional or first-time users. Even the multi-use buttons and dials of the Defender are annoying to me for the more rarely used ones because I have to study the array of markings above and below and to the right and left of the actual buttons to figure out where the terrain modes buttons are, or turning the temp dial into the seat hear or cool button or turning the other temp dial into the fan speed. This Grenadier is just perfect in that respect for me; the only reason to do away with lots of buttons IMO is for the sense of visual clutter that designers hate; many users, though, love a tactile button, switch or dial that they can operate with eyes still on the road because they know exactly where it is by feel and never even have to look at it.

For instance, I built my own "Willycon" Jeep by taking my ****** beyond what a Rubicon comes with, including front and rear locking D44 axles. The lockers I wired to two simple lighted rocker switches labeled Front and Rear. Could operate them by feel, in the dark, when concentrating on the toughest terrain in Moab. But a stock Rubicon operates both lockers with one switch, if I recall correctly; I've rented them and it annoyed me so much. You push the button once to activate either front or rear, and you don't even know which until the dash light tells you which one it was. Then another push activates the other one, a 3rd push turns one off and a 4th push turns the other one off. SOmething like that. It's not intuitive and you have to pay attention to it. Give me two switches instead and charge me $4 more MSRP to cover the cost, ya cheap bastards!