Photo: Ineso
Finding a turn-key automotive factory is almost impossible but, with the right connections and knowledge, INEOS found one last year, and it took a year to install the assembly lines and now it is almost ready to start production.
Some say that a beer in a pub with a good friend next to you might give you bright ideas. That's what happened to Sir Jim Ratcliffe prior to trying to purchase the rights to build the Defender from Jaguar Land Rover. They stood in the Grenadier pub in London and talked when they sparked the idea to produce their own version of the beloved Defender. Sir Jim Ratcliffe owns the petrochemical giant INEOS, and he had the money to do that. But from idea to production, there is a long road.
In 2020, he was accused by JLR for the fact that the car's design obviously resembles the Defender in so many ways that some people might not even know the difference. Moreover, they sued him and lost in a British Court of Law. Judges admitted that the cars look very similar, but they said that this is no reason to ban Sir Ratcliffe and INEOS from selling the product in the U.K. Perhaps, one of the reasons might be that the Defender featured a more than half-century-old design.
With this good news, Sir Ratcliffe started looking for a factory to assemble the cars. Fortunately, Mercedes-Benz had one for sale, located in Hambach, merely 200 km (125 miles) away from the INEOS Automotive operational base in Stuttgart. So he bought it in January 2021 for 470 million Euro ($534,8-million) and invested further 50 million (56,9 million USD) in it before the first pre-production car left the assembly line.
In February 2022, INEOS announced that it was nearing the end of the PTO1 (production try-out) phase. They need to build 130 vehicles in order to set up the tools and everything, so the Grenadier won't have the same problems as the old Defender. The PTO2 stage starts in March, and it is needed for the validation of the assembly process and quality control. Thus, INEOS will start the series production for the off-road vehicle in April. In the same month, the carmaker will announce the official prices for its products. Yet, it is believed that the customers will pay around $65,000 for the BMW-powered vehicles.
Isn't it ironic? A British car, built in France in a former Mercedes-Benz factory, with engines made by a former owner of the British brand. But this is just temporary since INEOS already works with Hyundai-Kia to develop a fuel-cell vehicle based on the Grenadier, and the prototype was already made in late 2021.
In 2020, he was accused by JLR for the fact that the car's design obviously resembles the Defender in so many ways that some people might not even know the difference. Moreover, they sued him and lost in a British Court of Law. Judges admitted that the cars look very similar, but they said that this is no reason to ban Sir Ratcliffe and INEOS from selling the product in the U.K. Perhaps, one of the reasons might be that the Defender featured a more than half-century-old design.
With this good news, Sir Ratcliffe started looking for a factory to assemble the cars. Fortunately, Mercedes-Benz had one for sale, located in Hambach, merely 200 km (125 miles) away from the INEOS Automotive operational base in Stuttgart. So he bought it in January 2021 for 470 million Euro ($534,8-million) and invested further 50 million (56,9 million USD) in it before the first pre-production car left the assembly line.
In February 2022, INEOS announced that it was nearing the end of the PTO1 (production try-out) phase. They need to build 130 vehicles in order to set up the tools and everything, so the Grenadier won't have the same problems as the old Defender. The PTO2 stage starts in March, and it is needed for the validation of the assembly process and quality control. Thus, INEOS will start the series production for the off-road vehicle in April. In the same month, the carmaker will announce the official prices for its products. Yet, it is believed that the customers will pay around $65,000 for the BMW-powered vehicles.
Isn't it ironic? A British car, built in France in a former Mercedes-Benz factory, with engines made by a former owner of the British brand. But this is just temporary since INEOS already works with Hyundai-Kia to develop a fuel-cell vehicle based on the Grenadier, and the prototype was already made in late 2021.
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