Ineos Grenadier: What price nostalgia?

Nostalgia is a pernicious little drug, according to the late great A. A. Gill, but that is perhaps unfair. It can mean odious things to odious people, who like to reminisce about polio and Spitfires and National Service and real milk in glass bottles, pining for a Britain that they were not alive for and can only imagine in their heads. People who make graphs about fertility rates and whose lives are wasted on the internet.

But nostalgia can also keep us grounded. The forces of innovation and economy are unrelenting, creating more and more, without really asking us what we need or want. There must always be something new, something shinier, regardless of whether it is necessary or not. A newer phone, a newer computer, a newer kitchen appliance, a newer car. Why does my fridge have to be smart? Why does my watch have to talk? Why must everything be a screen?

In this, nostalgia can be helpful, because it reminds us of simpler things. Simplicity is the key to happiness, because it is the antithesis of complexity, which is a thing that gives people headaches. I would like to make a dinner reservation, and no you cannot have my email address. The fridge is for keeping things cold, and not for having a conversation with.

It is perhaps not a surprise that someone like Sir Jim Ratcliffe sees nostalgia as something good rather than something bad. Manchester United is to be returned to its former glory. Britannia will once again rule the waves, via the medium of the Americas Cup. And it would be remiss not to have a British car that can go anywhere, and one that intentionally looks quite a lot like an original Land Rover Defender, but crucially is not an original Land Rover Defender.

We were all very sad when the OG Defender ceased production in 2016, but there was not much many of us could do about it. Not-so Sir Jim. He wasn’t going to let the Defender go quietly into the night. And so he decided to build his own version, because that is what billionaires can do, and the Ineos Grenadier was born. It was designed to look like the classic Defender, but is an entirely original machine, with all new components throughout. The differences don’t end there — it also doesn’t leak, and you can drive it without bits falling off and without your spine turning into dust.

There is much that can and has been written about Sir Jim and Ineos, which it would be boring to repeat. But what he has made, fuelled on intravenous nostalgia and money, is nothing short of exceptional. And its exceptionality is down to the simplicity of a singular purpose.

Nostalgia extends beyond just the look of a thing, but also how it feels and what it represents. Perhaps the first impression you take away from the Grenadier (after ‘gosh that does look a lot like a Defender’) is how analog everything is. Doors slam with a satisfying clunk. Buttons and levers are big and rugged. Yes, there is a screen that tells you where to go and how to listen to your favourite songs while driving, but everything else is a switch or a button on a control panel that looks like it was taken out of the cockpit of a 747. It is all immensely tactile and a very obvious foil to the endless march of touchscreens and sub menus. Maybe people have a point. Maybe things were better back Then. They were certainly simpler.

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The whole vehicle is refreshingly mechanical and everything on it and in it has been designed with purpose. The doors are heavy because they are load bearing. You can sit with a mate on the roof and survey the land. The steering is retro, in that it uses a recirculating ball rather than a rack-and-pinion, but this is so you don't break your wrists when driving over the English countryside. Engineering is in the very DNA of the thing.

Many cars are made to make the lives of the passengers as comfortable as possible. The Grenadier is made to get the passengers from A to B by going over things and through them. This is not to say that it is not comfortable — a two-hour drive from London to Salisbury Plain was no problem — but function is the purpose of the vehicle. And it functions.

Salisbury Plain, to those unaware, is usually the preserve of the Challenger II tank, which is probably one of the few vehicles in the world that can stop a Grenadier. It is not a playground for the uninitiated, but it is for the Ineos. This car can go places. That is what it is for.

There are many cars that can go off-road, because they have lots of fancy computers that make it easy. It’s a bit like getting ChatGPT to write a novel. It still counts, I suppose, but you aren’t really doing it yourself. Off-roading in a Grenadier is to sit at the typewriter and bleed, to paraphrase Hemingway. You will use the differential locks. You will use the ratios. You will hear things go clunk and go twang. And then you will drive up a thing, down a thing, through a thing and over a thing. The difference between the Grenadier and the computers is that you can feel it, and that you are a part of it. Reject modernity. Embrace tradition. Get your tires dirty.

The features that the Grenadier can employ to keep you moving are endless and it is rare to find a vehicle built for such a singular purpose. Rare yet refreshing. Perhaps it is the curse of the modern world that cars, much like everything else, try to be all things to all people. In essence, they are tools to move you from one place to another. Some do it quickly, some do it comfortably and some do it regardless of what is in the way.

There is much to love about the Grenadier. On the motorway and in the city, it is quiet and easy to drive, although the steering is a bit tricky to get used to. I like that its boxy shape makes it very easy to know the dimensions of the vehicle, which is vital when it comes to negotiating narrow parking spaces or streets.

Off-road, it is peerless. It is not just how well it performs, but how you feel while performing. You are the master and the commander, working alongside the vehicle to get to where you need to be, no matter what the landscape can throw at you. There are easier cars to drive off-road, sure, but none that will make you feel like you are off-roading.

It will not be everyone’s cup of tea. For the price, you do not get the levels of comfort and performance that you would expect from your BMWs, your Mercedes’, even your more modern Defenders. But that money hasn’t been wasted, because if you want something that is simple, singular and exceptionally good at the thing it was made to do, you will not find something better.

That is perhaps what nostalgia is best at. It’s not guessing at what people might want, but taking what you know people do want, and doing it better. Removing clutter and adding focus. Who knew that a vehicle could feel so new, and yet take inspiration from something so old. A pernicious little drug. And an addictive one.