RE: Official: 2022 INEOS Grenadier priced from £49k

I like it.


I'd buy one if I were in the market for such a vehicle

I don't think goods need to be 'in touch' with a market to sell per se. 'The market' is after all not everyone just the majority, the norm, what is on trend with the masses. So for cars, 'the market' is whatever generic boxes the mass manufacturers are churning out. They absolutely have to pander at all times to 'the market' and must be 'in touch'. If they don't convince the masses that their product meets those criteria then they won't sell millions of them all around the world. The generic mass manufacturers have to sell hundreds of millions of identical boxes to hundreds of millions of humans who all want to think they're different, if not special. Porsche among others are absolute masters of selling mass produced goods in a way that make their millions of absolutely identical customers feel like they are on trend yet individuals for example.

Now with this car, one could argue that it doesn't want to be on trend or with the mainstream market and you can argue that it could never be mainstream so it would be a folly to market it as 'being in touch' or 'on trend'.

It's a toy for blokes with the ability to borrow £60+ to have some fun with. It's not really a serious product like a van or a pick-up, or 3 series BMW or any of those types of generic tools that are essential to people making a living or companies making a profit. There's no one and no business that needs a Grenadier. They're a luxury good like a sports car. It has no real purpose in the 21st century than as a personal indulgence.

It's not looking to sell millions to the masses so has absolutely no need to every contemplate 'being in trend' or any of the tools needed to shift millions of units to millions of punters. They're looking for 25k customers a year in a few years time after proving the product in the open market.

I suspect that those who talk about it not having excellent road handling are as out of touch as those who talk about crawling over a rock as if it's of any relevance or importance. It's just a toy for folk who like mucking about. It's no different to folk buying niche sports cars. They aren't racing drivers, they have no need for such a product. It's just a luxury purchase that gives the owner the pleasure of the delusion of a different life when plodding down the road and occasionally actually be used off road, almost certainly in a manner that pretty much any car could be used but that's not really the point.

Are there more than 25k people in the Western economy who would buy a toy like this each year? Of course there are. The actual issue isn't whether the product is in line with the masses at all but whether the people who aren't on that fun bus actually have the money to buy this.

Blokes will take on huge debt, sums beyond their annual income just so they can rent a Porsche to be seen in public with so you can see that there are plenty of blokes who'll gear up £60k for a toy but I don't think that works for this product. I think the product desire is completely different. It's not about going heavily into debt to be able to step out into public life as someone you're not. That's the human mechanism behind such overt brands as Porsche and the near comical Aston Martin Bond toolism. Rent an Aston and stick some clothes on a credit card and somehow you're not longer Gary who's got a successful IT business and eats in public like a cement mixer while coughing over a stranger but now St John Smythe, the privately educated gentlemen and man of mystery. The illusion the Grenadier offers isn't for the benefit of strangers like other premium chattels but is a very selfish, personal illusion. It's all about allowing the buyer to more easily imagine they're away from everyone not in the midst of the throng being adored. It's a different self delusion and I'm not sure if those types of blokes rush to go into debt the same way. After all, they can buy a knackered Disco for £3k and stick some cross country bits and bobs on it to achieve the same enjoyable delusion.

It doesn't concern me that this car is woefully out of date and utterly disorientated from the mass market. In fact, I believe it is essential that it is as that is its USP. It has no need to handle sublimely on tarmac and no need to climb a boulder. It's about folk living a normal 9-5 life and this being a bit of escapism. I'm just not sure there are as many blokes wanting to rent a £60k+ offroad car as there are blokes will to rent £60k+ sports cars or SUVs for their pleasure?

We'll have to see but there's no shortage of NGO and industrial procurement being done out of Monaco and Geneva and those deals aren't purely driven by the price and running cost of the underlying product. There's no shortage of tinpot, third world nations who spend more on their military than their health and education.

I think £60k+ is a bloody stupid amount of money for a toy that's supposed to be the epitome of 20th century simplicity not cutting edge 21st century engineering and I suspect that the bulk of the target market may be excluded at that level but I'm a renowned tightwad who can't really fathom the logic behind most of the things folk with no money go and rent to ensure they never have any money.

If the Grenadier really had been £30k, not that I thought it ever could be and from the start I reckoned it was a £60k Home Counties toy but if it had been then I would probably have bought one to leave in the barn as the family smash up and bang about wagon that just would have slowly turned into a brilliant shed wagon over the next ten years. At £60k there's absolutely no way. Maybe if used values were to totally plummet then it would become a contender again but by then my children will be teenagers and things like dragging boats, trailers, bikes and crossing fields and using unmade roads on the continent will be less frequent.

But for me there is also the problem that this is a chattel where a single man has chosen to align that chattel to his own personal standards and morals and like with Tesla I find those morals and standards woefully lacking and the person does not represent my personal values one iota. In fact I find myself closer to the other end of the scale and paying my hard earned money to have something that represents those people isn't going to happen. For consumers like myself, we prefer the delusion that comes from the scumbag not being out front and centre and shouting.

Oh forgive me for quoting Big Jim’s own claim for its intended price point.

The old defender was from £25k, he wished to come close to that price point.
£49k is as near as makes no difference to double that price point. Are we not allowed to point out this issue or does it send you off on another rant?

23mpg is what my Discovery 3 would give while towing 3.5 tons. Hitch a trailer to this and you’ll be in the teens for economy. Progress eh?.

nonsensical hysterical objections?
Away and give your head a bloody wobble and stop throwing the toys out the pram when people point out these issues to you.


A well equipped D max is about 30k, why spend an extra 20k for an unknown car when you can have a truck that’s already proven, is reliable and just gets on with it.

So it’s double it’s original price claim, it’s got mpg figures that are worse than heavier cars from the early 00s and we are to just ignore this?

No one’s commuting in one of these. It’s a lifestyle vehicle in precisely the same way a VW Transporter is. It’s the prefect accessory for the clean wellies brigade.

Given you only deal in facts: Yes, the LC is smoking sexy. The Grenade thing is ugly as sin.

Fact.

The 110 defender station wagon was £43k in 2015, in todays money that's about £54k people really are forgetting about inflation when looking at pricing! the tesla model 3 has gone up 6k in a year, the base Toyota RAV 4 starts at £33k. £49 k base is pretty much spot on and i imagine they will be only making a slim margin at that price. My friend bought a new defender for £58 and its worth about £70k now apparently

The MPG figures are calculated differently now (more realistic) and they quote a best to worst range so 25-28mpg is going to be what people will see in general i think which is about what my disco 3 does. I was hoping for about better but it is very square and very heavy!

why not just buy a D max..... er well they are completely different cars! one's a pick up and ones a station wagon, one is cheap and cheerful one is build to last with the best engine and gear box combo available i could go on.

As a disco 3 owner thought you would like it, pretty much the only modern equivalent to the disco not that LR products have gone up market and round (not square inside/ practical.

I’m one of this fools with a very expensive transporter. Which is way more useful than any 4x4. However I can get 40 mpg fully loaded as a camper, 4 up and fully packed. I wouldn’t have bought it if it was doing 20. Transporters also do staggeringly high mileages and are daily’s for most. You barely even see an old defender anywhere now. Even a business colleague has swapped his 3.0 discovery for a 2.0 as the fuel is ridiculous: that chaps a millionaire and he’s feeling it !!!

I’ve had two Transporters, but they were both 4Motion (we get a fair bit of snow here at times and it’s hilly) and top engine T5 (180ps?) and T6 (204ps?) and I never got more than 34mpg. I think the 2WD 130 or 150 engines are way more frugal.

I was as much thinking about cost as anything. VW are a nice van but expensive.

I just don't get the whole (old style) defender thing. It's such a miserable hateful thing to drive or be driven in on the road. Yes you can dump a load of money into it to make it vaguely acceptable but even then I don't see what it offers that a 15 year old shagged out Touareg doesn't do better in every way for 1/5 of the price.

I don't think that's an uncommon perspective but it's obvious that there's more than a few people who like a bit of a ste wagon with a pretty unique character. I think you'd have to be a bit unhinged to say that they were ergonomically awesome cars but it's all part of the charm.