The Grey NATO – The Ineos Grenadier Minisode With Thomas Holland

Published on Mon, 06 May 2024 15:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

Thomas Holland from Throttle House joins the podcast to discuss the new Ineos Grenadier, an overbuilt off-road vehicle designed to be a modern replacement for the classic Land Rover Defender. They discuss the Grenadier's unique features like the safari windows, rugged construction, and surprising on-road refinement despite its utilitarian design focus. Thomas shares his experience driving the Grenadier and compares it to vehicles like the G-Wagen, Jeep Wrangler, and new Defender. They also touch on the potential appeal of the upcoming pickup version and the challenges of creating a highly specialized vehicle that still performs well as an everyday driver.

Links

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Transcript

Speaker
Unknown	Hello and welcome to a special kind of strange side bottle episode of the Graynado. I highly recommend that you listen to episode 282 before this, as I'm joined again by Thomas Holland, who's here to talk a little bit about the Ineos Grenadier. We just did a whole episode, which again is 282. Check it out that have that's that's got watches and cars and it's got everything a dissertation on mental health when it comes to driving all sorts of things very much. Yeah, this more specifically you rocked up to my house today for our recording driving a vehicle I'm genuinely interested in. Yes, which is this Ineos Grenadier. It's been a fascination point for the TGN slack basically since it was announced. We've got a couple buddies who own them. I got I you know, what did I drive five three kilometers, four kilometers in it. So I'm like, the thing is awesome.
Thomas Holland	It is extremely awesome. And I totally see why it's been a huge talking point with your crew, because it is like, probably one of the most adventury adventure vehicles that's come out in a very, very long time.
Unknown	Also, at least from from the few minutes I had in it, it feels like a bit of a salve or in the antithesis of this, like the gimmicky side of kind of hardcore off-roaders right now, whether it's, you know, little Easter eggs that they hide all over Jeeps or Broncos that have to, you know, have to be a certain way or a certain color. Like this feels a little bit more in line with, I mean, to be fair, the vehicle that it's meant to replace, which is the previous Defender. Super boxy Defender.
Thomas Holland	Yeah. So it, the INEOS doesn't care about your feelings about the way that it looks. It doesn't care about anything except being really good at what it does. And I've never, I don't think I've ever like felt an attitude from a vehicle as much as I've built it from the INEOS. It is just designed to do that one thing. And as a result of being so well designed at doing that one thing, it's actually quite good at doing a lot of things. Just because it's so well built. But yeah, for those that don't know, it's a weird vehicle. It's designed by INEOS, which is, you know, it's designed in Britain. by Ineos, which is a chemical manufacturer. And they make like industrial chemicals for industry. Yeah, the Ineos group. The Ineos group. You might've seen their logo on the back of Mercedes AMG F1 cars. And they designed this vehicle and they put a German engine in it and then they built it in France. So it's kind of all over the map and it came out of nowhere. And well, it didn't come out of nowhere.
Unknown	It's been like- The gestation period has been fast for what it is, but not fast.
Thomas Holland	But the thing is, is that it was one of those vehicles. And I talked about this in our episode that we released. It just felt like it came out of nowhere because it was one of those vehicles where you assumed that it would just never come to fruition.
Unknown	Also car guys are so used to seeing a cool idea. could be a concept. Sometimes you see a rolling chassis, sometimes it's a crazy angular steel pickup truck.
Thomas Holland	And we push it from our minds lest we be disappointed.
Unknown	And you think, well, that's never gonna happen.
Thomas Holland	Exactly, right? And that's what I thought this was gonna be. I've been burned before. I've been hurt before. And then this one appeared, and not only did it appear, it's appearing in numbers. Like I went to the dealership where I picked it up from, and there was like 36 of them on the dealership lot. And I asked him, I said, if I wanted to buy one of these right now, when would I get one? I was expecting three years. He said, probably the last quarter of this year.
Unknown	I mean, that's not terrible for the way cars are these days.
Thomas Holland	That's, that's honestly very impressive. And it's just kind of spending some time with the vehicle. It is the most insanely overbuilt thing I've driven in a long time. Like, um, I had to watch another YouTube video of a guy that has been designing parts for one. I wish I can remember the name of his channel right now. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, sure. And he, he went through the entire underside of this thing. And he was so blown away by how overbuilt everything is. Yeah. He said, this isn't even like half ton truck stuff. This is one ton truck level parts. Wow. Right. Everything is. So there's a cooler for the transfer case, a cooler for the transmission, a cooler for the differentials, all independent of one another. Yeah. Right. Obviously in crazy cooling for the engine, which is a B58 BMW engine and is at F8 speed from not by BMW, but usually connected to the B58. But it's just so incredibly overbuilt because they just wanted to build a vehicle that you could drive across Africa. And the fellows over at Overland Journal, another podcast, they just finished driving one across Africa, all the way across. And he said, didn't even have one check engine light. Right. Not one thing.
Unknown	So no problem. By the time this little mini episode about the Grenadier comes out, oh, another thing I really want to make clear, this is not an ad in any way. Not at all. This is a product I'm genuinely really kind of interested in and something I would love to talk about. I got to drive it briefly. It is not an ad. I have no comms with Indios.
Thomas Holland	We actually, neither of us have actually even been in contact with Indios. I got mine from a dealership, right? So yeah, as usual in Throttle House world, we never hold anything back, never been sponsored by a manufacturer. No, that's the way you guys rock. I just think this is just one of the coolest things ever.
Unknown	Yeah. Well, and the second thing I wanted to make clear is if you're listening to this, not only should you have listened to 282 for TGM, but you should go to YouTube. Like I would say if your core, if your core interest is hearing Thomas talk about the Ineos Grenadier, pause it, go to YouTube and watch the Throttle House video. You're just going to find more of Thomas talking about the Grenadier. Yeah, exactly. I'm very excited for this video. It comes out in just a couple of days when we're recording this. We're looking at, let's call loosely, it's $100,000 truck.
Thomas Holland	Yes, about that. So the thing is that makes it interesting is that it's priced really well. And you don't ever hear me say that these days, right? Because it's in Canada, but $80,000 less than a base G wagon, right? And it has all the same tech.
Unknown	Yeah. It's a different take on the same sort of format. The G wagons by nature has become so luxurious. Exactly.
Thomas Holland	And the G wagon has gone to independent front suspension. There you go. And this has a solid front axle.
Unknown	This I wouldn't call it luxurious, but the inside is very nice. It's very nice. Not like a Jeep.
Thomas Holland	It's cool. Not like a Bronco. Yes, it's more cool than luxurious, right? But it's well insulated and very solid on the road. So when you drive it, it's got G-Wagon vibes more than it has Jeep and Bronco vibes, right? It's about the same price as a Defender. And it's just a little bit more than a Wrangler Rubicon.
Unknown	It's not that much more than a four by E. It's not that much more than a well appointed non-hot Brocco. Exactly. I think they priced it really smart. It's expensive. It's very expensive. It's very expensive. No question. But go and look at the price tag on one ton trucks. Go look at the price tag on... I don't wanna be unfair as I do enjoy Jeep. I like their product. I have one. But even look at the price point and the way that a top spec Rubicon And like, don't get me wrong, the Rubicon, and we'll get into this because I think you wrote a great story about how specializing vehicles really changes their concept. Yeah. And like, if you really want to consider what the Rubicon is great for, it's like the GT2 RS. Right. But for off-roading.
Thomas Holland	It's exactly what it is.
Unknown	A very specific type of off-roading.
Thomas Holland	Yes, exactly. It's not for sand, it's not for whoops.
Unknown	Crazy articulation, rock crawl. It's for five miles an hour, up just about anything in a way that other factory vehicles for a long time couldn't do. Yeah. That competition has changed. Yes. Yes. Well, and the other side of this, this also appeals, I think that as much as a Jeep guy or a G-Wagon guy might consider this, I think this hits really hard against Land Cruisers.
Thomas Holland	I think it hits really hard against Land Cruisers. No question, right? It's got a couple extra cylinders, which is nice. And the Land Cruiser is very expensive. Land Cruisers have always been expensive because Toyota knows that you're going to pay for reliability, and people do because they're reliable.
Unknown	So one can assume... And the service network. Exactly, obviously. Which Ineos isn't going to be able to match.
Thomas Holland	No question. Also, Also, quality control is definitely a thing worth bringing up. Like, for example, on our particular one that we tested, a few things that popped up were the front-facing camera kept kind of flashing on and off, the light would stay on. So I think there was no, like, proximity sensor. Oh, okay. And the plaque on it, we were in a Fieldmaster, and it said Trialmaster on the plaque. So they just got the wrong- Which is early car stuff. Early car stuff, right? But I mean, all things considered, it hasn't been that bad. As I said, like, you know, I've driven lots of Land Rover products that feel far more slapdash than this did, and they've been around forever. So yeah, it's definitely a really, really interesting vehicle. And probably the best part about it is that they're making a pickup version, and it's called the Qualtimaster. I mean, that's pretty good. It's a pretty good name, right? And you could just you could go to vehicle and you can spec one right here on the website in front of us and you spec a quartermaster in in sand. Yeah, you go to build your Grenadier there. And then you spec a quartermaster in the sand color. And it's it makes me physically excited. Oh, look at that. Yes. Yeah, it's so cool. And it starts at a little bit more. That one's not out yet. But But yeah, so there's the trial master edition, the field master edition, or you can build one just right from the the base of the Quartermaster, right? And they come in some really cool colors too, but that just looks so awesome.
Unknown	Yeah, they really do. The other thing I was a little bit surprised by the size, it's very similar in size to my Wrangler.
Thomas Holland	Yeah, it's starting to be thin, it has to go down trails.
Unknown	Yeah, it's maybe a little longer than an X5, which in my mind is always this nice length for... Yeah, I'd say it is. A two row with some storage, but when you open the back, it has a lot of height, it's above me and you. But when you open the back, I was also surprised, like, that's one of the things I've really enjoyed about the Wrangler is there's more space in a Wrangler than you realize. Yes, there is. There's quite a bit of space in the trunk, the boot, behind the second row of seats, and there's a ton in this. And this, because the boxiness, there's so much access to that space. It's not like putting things in the trunk or, you know, those of you who have a modern, sportier SUV, the opening when you open the back is often quite small and that constricts what you can and can't get in them and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I was... I mean, one, it's green. It's a green truck. Green's the best color for cars.
Thomas Holland	It's a hard statement. Green cars are best cars.
Unknown	You know, it's really nice green.
Thomas Holland	It's over black.
Unknown	I would go like tan or gray or something like that. But I'm really impressed. Everything I touched inside felt nicer than I expected for essentially a first gen vehicle. Yep. Yep. It's a weirdly small steering wheel, but that also meant that it doesn't foul against my dumb legs.
Thomas Holland	which don't fit in a lot of cars. I think that's one of the reasons. And also there's a lot of turns lock to lock, pretty slow steering ratio. So they shortened the wheel, made the wheel smaller. But as a result though, the, the, like the, the microphone button, if you want to like activate Siri, is like really close to the edge. So if you're doing a lot of lock to lock, which you will do, Siri's helping out way more than she should. Yeah. There's definitely a few things which I'd like to see different, like right now, you can't get a... This seems like a weird gripe, but there's no heated steering wheel.
Unknown	At that price point, it is something that's fairly common. And in Canada, if you're listening and you don't live in Canada, maybe it's a big deal to you where you do live, but it is a nice thing to have.
Thomas Holland	And the thing is, is that if it... Weirdly, if it drove really poorly and it felt like a farm truck, I wouldn't care. You'd excuse a bunch of this stuff. I would excuse... But since it feels so close to G-Wagon, Yeah, in like, like smoothness and refinement, that I feel like I want a few of those extra luxuries, right? Like, why not give them to me?
Unknown	Right? I was surprised because the experience from me much more layman when it comes to modern cars, reviewing cars, then of course, then yourself. But the experience for me, I was surprised by getting in the vehicle, the the contrast of parts of it feel like an old vehicle, and parts of it feel like a very new vehicle. I think that's exactly... Steering wheel feels very new, but the distance from, say, my chest to the dash is not what a modern car feels like anymore. No. It's weird, right? It's great. The dash is very upright. If you're a Jeep driver, an old Land Rover driver, you'll love that. Windscreen. Windscreen's very vertical. Windscreen's very vertical. The main screen, there's only one screen, really. There's like a display board in front of the driver for like warning lights and turn signals and stuff. But the rest of it's kind of like a mini, it's in the center. Yeah. I'm not a huge fan of that.
Thomas Holland	Not ideal.
Unknown	It's definitely the kind of thing that I would, it would not be a deal breaker and I would just get over it. Yes. You just stop caring.
Thomas Holland	Well, I, that's what happened. I spent, you know, right away getting out of any vehicle with independent front suspension and into something with a solid axle. There's like an immediate learning curve. It's very lively. Yeah. This, this like on the highway, if you don't pay attention, you will be in the other lane. It's two hands all the time. It's just two hands all the time. And you're always steering. But over the course of a week, I totally got used to it and it stopped being a main issue for me, right? Which leads me to believe that maybe in the past I've been too harsh on Jeeps and I could learn to live with a Jeep every day. But he's like, he's like, no, you know, I don't think you could.
Unknown	Yes or no, like I'm always super specific about it. I love my Jeep. Yes. And if you buy cars the way that I buy cars, and your mental process matches that, I think you'd be happy with the outcome of the vehicle, but I don't commute. Right, exactly. If I don't wanna drive, I don't have to. Exactly. I don't... I drastically prefer a heavy, vague clutch. Right. To... You drive a brand new car now, sometimes I can't tell if I'm past the friction point. Very true. They're so light. Mostly like that, yep. I drove... What did I drive in Geneva? A brand new rental Ford Fusion. Yep. They still make the Fusion?
Thomas Holland	maybe called something else over there.
Unknown	It was a Ford sedan. Yeah. Very fusion-y. I think it's called the Mondeo over there. But maybe it was a Mondeo. It was a cool, great looking wagon. Yeah. I didn't ask many questions. I didn't read the badge on the back. The person I was with was like, I have to take this back. I'm like, is this stick? And they're like, yeah.
Thomas Holland	I'm like, can I drive? I'm like, sure. It was car, you drove it.
Unknown	Yeah. And everything was great, but there was no clutch feel. So until I learned... I had to stall it. Yeah. How sad is stalling a car that has a button to start it again? Yes. Because the button doesn't come on immediately.
Thomas Holland	Exactly.
Unknown	It's not like, you know, like if you kill a key and bring it back, it's going to do what it does at the other end. Yeah. The button, you're just kind of like, I know the clutches.
Thomas Holland	Exactly. And in a lot of modern cars these days, you use, you know, you use like hopes and dreams to feel out what is actually happening in it. As opposed to, it's very numb. Speaking of push buttons, this has a key.
Unknown	Has a key, but it tricked me because it has a button as well. It says start stop on it.
Thomas Holland	That turns off the auto start stop when you're coming at it. He's quick. He's like, why is it not working? What's going on?
Unknown	And in a normal car, this is one of these. The other thing that leaps out is the size of the buttons is one thing. Does not make it feel like a modern vehicle. Beautifully done. Yes. Very industrial. Actual toggle switches on the ceiling. Every piece. Oh yeah. And every piece, every font is super readable. Yep. you're not i don't have to look at something twice like i got in and immediately thumb that start button yeah as soon as my foot was on the brake you did yeah nothing happened nothing happened you know you have to use the key and i thought you meant like you have to put the key in put it to start and then press that button it's just a good old but then i just felt the cylinder i'm like nope that's a full normal start so normal key is kind of cool doesn't you know couldn't care less really one way or another about that yeah Um, the other thing that is like stark is you sit in this thing and it has this little steering wheel, which feels nice and perforated with stitching and a red button on it. And you think like, Oh, did I get into a GTI? Yeah. And then the seats, man are not jeep seats. They're not old Land Rover. They're like really like, as soon as I got in, I'm like, Oh, these are, I'm the size of this seat. It's like putting on a jacket that fits.
Thomas Holland	And it's kind of weird too, like the, I don't think we even talked about this in the video, but like the position for your arms in it, since it's a very narrow vehicle, like overall.
Unknown	Well, and that was the thing with the old Defenders, your shoulder was always obstructed by the other human being you brought with you.
Thomas Holland	Yes, exactly.
Unknown	If you're, you know, if you're a full size guy, like Jason and I in Defenders, we're touching the whole time.
Thomas Holland	Yeah. That's that. Yeah. There's definitely more space than that at least. Yeah. But, but the door is really close to you. So your arm rest is the sill of the window. Yeah. Very Land Rover-y. You have to have it there essentially. RIP your elbow in a side impact accident. But like... Just bring her in. Just bring her in real quick. You got time. Exactly. You got time. You always see them coming. Oh, yeah. But yeah. So that's kind of cool. So when you get the window down and then it's got the safari windows right above your head. Yeah.
Unknown	And you can fully... Please correct me. I've never seen that in another vehicle.
Thomas Holland	I don't think I have either. Not like that anyway. Not in a modern vehicle. Definitely not.
Unknown	Yeah. So check the show notes for the links or go to the INEOS website. But what we're talking about is there's an entire panel a foot wide in the center of the front of the roof for the driver to click on auxiliary power and do battery controls. You can modify those panels with... People will be 3D printing their own stuff and the rest of it. All of that's there, but on either side of that panel, directly above the passenger and the driver's head and lap are these openable channel windows.
Thomas Holland	Actually, they're removable. You can take the glass out completely. God, I wanna buy one of these. Exactly, right? Yeah. So and so this is the thing. So I have this I have this thing and my co host always gives me a hard time as he loves sunroofs and moonroofs and stuff. I think they're all stupid. Okay, because 99% of them are behind your head. Right? Oh, sure. When you're when you're in a car with a sunroof, or a moonroof, whatever they're called these days, that it starts at the top of your head and goes back behind you. So you don't get to enjoy it, like you open it and you get a little bit of wind in the back of your hair. And that's all it's pointless. It's so dumb. And it just adds weight and reduces headroom. Sure. So since this has as much headroom as the nearest skyscraper, you'd be a tall man.
Unknown	You'd have to be a tall man to be hair brushing the top of that glass.
Thomas Holland	So next part is that the actual safari window is 99% in front of you. So like, if you sit in the seat and you kind of like glance up, you're seeing right out of it. So like when I was driving by the airport, I was watching all the planes. There's like birds. I could watch the stars at night. It's extremely awesome. And then obviously, you know, you can like pop out there and shoot poachers.
Unknown	yeah well you said that you as you do you're able to fit through them yes and they're definitely big but that makes me think of all the overlanding stuff where people will make ports yep so you'll be able to go from the front seat of the passenger seat directly into your tent probably yeah exactly you know you've seen that there's definitely like venture four-wheel drive christian's has has a whole setup where his rooftop tent and sleeping area is fully part of the... Oh, an AlluCab. AlluCab. And you can go from the rear seat directly into it. You actually have to cut the roof out to do that.
Thomas Holland	Oh, almost. On a JL or JK. It's a very serious modification. Yeah. But yeah, I'm sure there'll be things people are going to custom tents for this that will do that, right? You don't have to option the Safari windows if you don't want. You can... Exactly right. You have to. Come on. So cool. But yeah, I don't know. As I said, it's a new company. There's definitely some... There is a fantastic video I think done by Harry Metcalf.
Unknown	also about this, and he goes into... Yeah, we love Harry. Yeah. I'll include that as a supplement to what I know will be a great video from Throttle House. But there is a background where I think the factory they're using was previously already set up to build a similar-ish vehicle. Yes, yes. I could be dead wrong. It could have been like Alpine's old factory.
Thomas Holland	It was definitely something that you've heard of. You used to do something else that you've heard of, yeah. But yeah, and that's in France, that bit. Yeah, yeah. Humbach, I think. Okay. Is that where it's... I don't know. That's what it says on the side anyway.
Unknown	Oh, yeah, it does have a little badge.
Thomas Holland	Yeah, it also has a badge on the front. It's it's half the Union flag, half the German flag, which James joke that his grandfather would just be rolling. That's not okay with that. Not acceptable.
Unknown	I was very surprised by how much it drove like a modern utility vehicle.
Thomas Holland	Yeah, yeah, I think I don't remember if I wrote this or if I said this in the video, but it drives closer to a BMW X seven than it does a Jeep. Like it's definitely, you know, just past the middle, but it's, it feels more like just a modern luxury SUV than it does a really hardcore farm truck. Like I've driven an old defender, right? It was like being punched by people. It was really rough, right?
Unknown	They are, for sure. And I think that there's always... There's a push and pull when you enter a luxury SUV, especially a tool-ish one. Let's go G-Wagon and Defender, for example. And I think both Mercedes and JLR have had a lot of trouble just trying to decide where to rest between making it more of a car but less of a tool, or making it more of a tool and thus less of a car. There's always this thing like, you know, a Rubicon can go over Moab and conceivably do so while staying upright. But like, is it necessarily, can it do that while also being a good school car? Exactly. You know, there's a cost, right? Or that there's that statement about evolution where like, if you evolve lungs, you're probably going to lose your gills. Exactly. And they also might not be good lungs the first round around. Exactly. Right. And I think that's, that's some of what comes into this. And that's a great, you know, there's this paid side of the throttle house, the club. And for that, you guys write the occasional kind of newsletter and story. And you did a story that came out, I think, today? Oh, yeah.
Thomas Holland	Yesterday? It was in my email today.
Unknown	Yeah. All about kind of the conundrum of having a highly specialized vehicle and how that means different things. I mean, if you're talking about a highly specialized road car where maybe it's a little bit too track, that means a lot of various... And some people love that. It's louder, it's noisier, it's more vibration.
Thomas Holland	But it will suck at everything else. But it'll be bad at everything else.
Unknown	But then you'll get it on a track and you're like, Yeah, this makes sense. Yes, exactly. And then on the on the other side, you can make vehicles that are exclusively, you know, like an s class is about just going to the airport and comfort. Yep. Right. Yeah. Not good on a track.
Thomas Holland	Horrible on a canyon. Exactly. Horrible on the canyons.
Unknown	Yeah, that sort of thing. So I think it's a it's a fast I'd love like a little synopsis on that on that article.
Thomas Holland	Yeah.
Unknown	And I highly recommend checking out the clubhouse. It's $60 a year to get into that kind of stuff, which seems super fair to me.
Thomas Holland	Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's definitely like we, we write articles on different topics every single month, right? James's article this month was on what it's like to apologize to manufacturers and because he's had to do it. Um, and kind of what that feels like and what that's actually like from our perspective. So a lot of behind the scenes type of stuff. And we do a live video every, uh, every month as well. I think that's happening tomorrow. But yeah, so yeah, so that particular article was, you know, I use my M2 as an example, as a car that it isn't amazing at anything because it's trying to be multiple things. And if you try, if you are even moderately successful at multiple things, it won't be phenomenal at any of those one things. It's just not possible in the car world, right?
Unknown	What's that master of none scenario where like specialization is only for insects if you made something perfect? Like, think about the more and more hardcore they make Porsches for the track, the more they start to look like praying mantises. It just gets gnarlier and gnarlier. At a certain point, this doesn't look like a 911 anymore, a car anymore.
Thomas Holland	So, yeah. So, and well, the whole idea of that article was talking about this, this Ineos and how it, it's, it is insanely specialized. You cannot get away from the fact that this is a vehicle that is designed to be a hardcore overland, long distance vehicle. And it should suck to drive, but it doesn't. So that it just confused me. I was like, this doesn't make any sense. Um, I will say that the, the fuel tank's too small. Do you know how big it is? Uh, I think 90 liters, I think. And the, the, the range was bigger than the Jeeps by a good, yeah, but the range is only like 400 and something, 480 kilometers.
Unknown	That's about what the Jeep gets on 67. Yeah.
Thomas Holland	But, but if you're designing a vehicle from the ground up to be an overland vehicle, I want, I want two of those tanks. You can get a 70 series with two tanks. Yep. Right. So, well, one guy was going underneath the underside and he realized that since the The B58 has some pretty specific exhaust requirements, I think. There's this huge exhaust box on the rear, right underneath where the tow hitch would go. And he said, he's like, I might try and find a way to get the exhaust out the side. So you can put another fuel tank. Just make a bunch of space. Yeah. Yeah. There's a huge amount of space. So I think that would be one of the things that it needs just a little bit more range.
Unknown	Yeah. And I mean, I definitely not, my guess is it has a fair bit of exhaust under there. Cause it's not a small vehicle. So there's transit to be concerned with. And also I didn't hear it in any specific way once I was in it.
Thomas Holland	It's pretty quiet.
Unknown	Yeah, exactly. You know, it's fun because the design brief for this was to essentially make a modern version of the now discontinued previous gen Defender. And that's, to be fair, what Land Rover set out to do with the current gen Defender. They just, they picked a different slider.
Thomas Holland	They, well, they were, to their credit, they were very intelligent with that car because they're selling a good trillion of those things and they look good. because it looks awesome, it drives really well, and it isn't really that compromised. And yet, to its credit, still very capable off-road. It's a very, like, you probably would never find a situation, realistically, that that Defender couldn't do... With the right driver. With the right driver, this INEOS could. Yeah. Right? Probably true. Right? Like, the situations absolutely do exist. And I'm not talking about, like, you know, if you're doing a 5,000 mile journey, which one is going to make it to the end, I will not speculate. I think that Land Rover did an excellent job with the Defender. And they made it more of an everyday vehicle because they knew they were going to sell it to people who are never going to see a gravel road. And they have been. But Ineos didn't care. That was the idea with this.
Unknown	I also think that they may have found a way to do both.
Thomas Holland	I think they somehow have and that's why I'm very confused.
Unknown	It's a little bit, I would say it's less luxurious than the new, the new one, but not by any like the new, the new defender. Yeah.
Thomas Holland	It's like not any wide margin. No. And it, no, like you, you, there's certain aspects of it that you could argue are more luxurious. I actually like the seats in the Grenadier more than the defender. Um, I like the driving position in the Grenadier more. Yeah. And like the defender has ambient lighting and stuff like that. Like, like, their goal with the Grenadier was to reduce everything unnecessary, right?
Unknown	What did I ask for? And you said, well, yeah, but it's like, it's not necessarily needed.
Thomas Holland	Well, yeah, you said like, well, I wish there was a gauge cluster.
Unknown	Oh, that's right. Or even just a heads up.
Thomas Holland	Yeah.
Unknown	Somebody told me my speed without looking to the right.
Thomas Holland	Exactly. And I agree with you. I would like that as well. But their attitude is, well, if we don't put that in and if we don't put powered seats in and if we don't put a push button start. I don't mind manual seats at all. Right. Fine by me. We can probably, you know, reduce the number of ECUs in the car. Reduce the number of wiring. Reduce the increases. Increase the simplicity. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, there's less fused circuits now, which means there's more available and space for wiring other things than you might want. So that was their kind of idea with it. And I totally respect that. Right. So, you know, and you can option a shovel for God's sake.
Unknown	Yep. And look, if you're worried about your speed, I will say that this thing will ding and beep at you a lot about how fast you're driving. Yeah, because there has been w thing to be there has yet to be an update where
Thomas Holland	system, you know, things that you select speed warning, yes, stay off when you select them off. So every time you start the car, everything's reset. And I think I don't know if this even went in our video or not. But the the recirculation mode door that resets as well. When you're going down the highway, the first time I was like, Oh, no, it's a lot of wind noise. It was just the research. It was just open. Yeah. So when I closed it, right, silent. Oh, nice. Okay. Okay. So that's, that's how that works. But you have to remember to do it every time right now.
Unknown	Yeah, look, I'm fascinated by it. I'm so glad that you brought it by and we had a chance to chit chat about it. I'm very excited to see the video. I, you know, I think enough of us have been burned by like the promises of brands that don't happen five, 10 years later or great concept cars that never come to fruition or cars that do come out, but they've been clearly been rushed and they have compromises beyond the plan where they couldn't get this piece of electronics. So it's missing a feature or, you know, It's not a couple of bugs or quirks, it's like major problems that people would keep... I don't think anything, at least nothing I've witnessed or that you've explained so far, if you were an interested buyer in this vehicle fit your life, I don't think there's something there to stop you from going for it.
Thomas Holland	No, nothing immediate. I've been cruising the forums and some guys have... There's definitely a few teething issues, some leaky pieces of trim or something like that. Oh, really? Well, I mean, that's an actual thing. Nothing major though, and it was a pretty isolated case for this one person. and a lot of variances in the way the steering feels apparently. But a lot of the comment, I was trying to filter through people who had never driven like a solid front axle vehicle before. If you're coming from like a crossover and you get in one of these big heavy duty axle, you might not be used to the way it feels in general. You might feel like something's wrong. So it's not necessarily the case. I didn't really know, but yeah, definitely teething issues. It isn't perfect, no question, but hopefully they're just going to keep making it better. Like ideally that would be what you'd assume any manufacturer would do, but that's not always the case.
Unknown	Well, yeah, I think that's a that's a good way to end it, you know, with the first gen of a product. I'm thrilled to have had a chance to cart around a little bit and take a peek at it and just to chit chat about it. It's you know, I don't these days I don't find to get super excited about a lot of new cars. Yeah. Land Cruiser is pretty exciting. I could see you owning. That's the kind of thing. A lot of times I'm a good second or third owner.
Thomas Holland	Yeah. I'm feeling that about this one too. Hopefully they depreciate. Yeah.
Unknown	We'll see how these depreciate. I could see something like this or that Land Cruiser in the future. Yeah. Checks a lot of boxes. Feels like a good option for the Canadian single car sort of setup. Yep. Especially if you have to tow something occasionally or if you need to go off road occasionally, maybe you've got another property. The same sort of reasons I might like the Jeep. I think I would like this. Yeah. It's cool. And I appreciate you coming on to chit chat even more about it. You know, we've done a couple hours of chatting so far.
Thomas Holland	Yeah, no, no, it's all good. It's lots of fun. Hopefully, at one point, I'll bring over the the the pickup version, the Quartermaster. Great.
Unknown	Yeah, for sure. Right. I mean, I just keep looking at it. It's just such a cool. It looks so cool. All right. Well, a big thank you, Thomas, for coming back on and chit chatting about the Grenadier. And as always, everybody who's listening should be subscribed to the Throttle House YouTube channel, and I highly recommend if you're deep into cars, if you want extra, even more stuff from Throttle House to check out their sort of paywall. I definitely feel it's worth it. A fair price and good, good sort of monthly stuff coming out of there. So yeah, thanks for coming on. Maybe we go find some lunch. Let's do it. All right. All right. Thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you soon, but probably not with an episode quite like this one.