By John Ferronato
I became interested in the Grenadier fairly early on, if not at the whispers of its inception at least well in advance of INEOS’ taking orders. When preordering was announced I hesitated because of the BMW power plant, and I just wanted to see it in person, sit in it, touch it, and otherwise engage with it somewhere shy of intimately.
Between the preorder stage and them actually showing up at one of the 19 and growing U.S. dealers, I continued to feed my interest in the truck with endless article reading and video watching that revealed concerns about the B58 engine were far from founded. It’s an engine regularly deployed by race teams tuned to well over 700 horsepower with the stock lower internals and still reliable. I discovered what Magna Styer was about and learned that Toyota with Magna put the B58 in the Supra.
Trickles and then a flood of information from INEOS regarding their worldwide testing from the Sahara to the Arctic Circle and back, including 1.8 million kilometers all over the world, made my skepticism turn to confidence pretty rapidly. Then INEOS started selling in Europe, Africa and, maybe most importantly, Australia to not just good reviews but reviews free from issues. Whether or not the reviewers liked the car or not, no one was, and to date essentially no one is, having any issues, let alone mechanical failures.
The Grenadier Adventure Begins
With concerns alleviated and interest piqued, the first Grenadiers hit Lyle Pearson INEOS in Boise, Idaho December of 2023. The moment I saw the truck my excitement turned to something more clinical, and before getting any diagnosis, I bought the one they had most like what I would have preordered nearly a year prior. The color was different and it had more options and therefore cost more than I wanted, but out of the two or three cars available it was the one.
We did the deal and drove off the lot with a 2024 INEOS Grenadier Trialmaster in “Magic Mushroom” with “Inky Black Top.” Trialmaster means it came with the “Rough Pack” that includes E-Lockers and BFG KO2 10-ply tires, “Raised Air Intake,” and prewired for a winch that included a 500-amp switch in the cab that also provided power to the a rear NATO plug for rear winching or providing power to a trailer or whatever, very cool. It also came with the “Highload Auxiliary Switch Pannel” and Auxiliary Battery. Yes, dual battery set up from the factory, both high-capacity, quality batteries, but not isolated. It also has the Safari Window, heated seats and the all-important compass and altimeter.
My Grenadier came well equipped, but as the weeks rolled on the temptations to bolt stuff onto it became irresistible. Manufacturer after manufacturer started releasing all manner of parts and modifications.
Sliders
First things first, rock sliders. Every 4×4 needs sliders and the sooner the better, because whether you have stock tires of 40’s, bigger tires just means bigger obstacles, and that paradigm means sliders first and always. I was pleasantly surprised to already see sliders available from White Knuckle Off Road Products, a staple in the industry and a trusted company I have relied on in the past.
They arrived and bolted on easier than any modification I have ever installed, partly because White Knuckle rocks, but also because INEOS engineered the truck with all the flanges welded, threaded inserts, and access for installation of true vehicle-supporting sliders. No annoying gigantic U-bolts or nut-cert hoaky crap that you have to be a contortionist to install. This is a recurring theme for the Grenadier I’m pleased to report.
Big Tires
Next, ground clearance; true ground clearance means larger tires. In this case I went with my tried-and-true choice of Cooper S/T MAXX in 255/80 R-17’s around the stock steel wheels. These would have fit well without any lift as the Coopers are only around 1 1/2, maybe 1 3/4 inches taller, but at the same time narrower than the stock BFG’s. However, Eibach, who provided the stock coil springs to INEOS, offers springs that lift the front about 2 1/2 inches and 1 1/4 inches at the rear.
Though not necessary to run the tires, I did break my rule and installed the Eibach lift to help balance the look of the car by removing most the forward rake. They do have a minor benefit of raising the frame rails and rocker panels a bit, but true clearance comes for larger tires. Another justification was that of being forward thinking and accommodating the increased weight of the soon-to-come winch, but let’s be honest, it was because it looks cool.
Winches
No winch options were available at the time I purchased the Grenadier, and there weren’t even any rumblings about an aftermarket solution stateside or internationally. Considering if you didn’t order the factory winch from the factory, there was absolutely no way to get it after the fact. Thankfully, my patience was rewarded.
No, I wasn’t patient at all, and it wasn’t too long before A.J at GP-Factor announced not only a winch solution — he announced winch magic. They designed a system with a custom winch from ComeUp that maintains 99% of the aesthetics and Factory bumper components, provides crumple zone and hides behind OEM stuff just like the INEOS Factory Red Winch, but increases the usable rope length significantly. My Heroes! I put down a deposit on one immediately and reset my patience.
More Winches
Now, the rest of the story. While waiting, patiently….not, for the GP-Factor winch, I ran across another winch-mounting solution from LFD Off Road that allows for installation of “standard” off-the-shelf winches from Warn and others. So, I bought that too. At this point I wasn’t worried about having two winch systems bought and paid for for a couple of reasons. One, I would simply install the winch that arrived first for the purposes of this article on the Grenadier and install the one that came last on the now-on-order INEOS Grenadier Quartermaster truck — stay tuned.
The LFD came first, with exceptional customer service and communication. And with a little help from my son and a long Saturday afternoon, it was in and sporting a brand new Warn Zeon XD 12-S winch, coming highly recommended. It offers improvements in line speed and durability enhancements. Now no winch should be seen out in public without minimal Factor 55 adornments of Hawse Fairlead, and for me, a Flatlink “E” for Expert because I’m worth it.
Seriously, Factor 55 has transformed the winching industry with safe, reliable, rated and innovative products. Last word on winches — don’t compromise and learn how to use it and all necessary fixtures properly, because poor quality, non-rated gear can fail and kill you or worse, kill someone else.
Lights
Last but not least, lighting. Off-road lighting is fun, and LED technology has advanced options dramatically over recent years, decades even. Damn, I’m old, because I can remember aspiring to own KC Daylighters. Fortunately, KC is still a force, but there are a number of other companies providing options.
My option for the Grenadier was Baja Designs, as both Owl out of Mesa, Arizona and Agile Off-Road from behind the Iron California curtain, but still a Mecca of off-road companies, manufacture slick brackets to replace the nearly useless OEM lights with Baja Design lights. Owl uses the LP-4 lights, and Agile uses those slightly longer in the tooth but still exceptional XLR-80’s. Both bracket and light systems work well, but each provides a different aesthetic.
The XLR-80’s are more old school than the LP-4’s that are a little more up to date and provide some additional features and improvements like backlighting, side beams and improved cooling features. I installed the LP-4’s from Owl, and they look sharp and work well. The XLR-80’s have a significant advantage though in that they are serviceable from the front and the LP-4’s are not, so if a lens is broken or an LED goes bad, it will require significant dismantling of the truck to get at those parts. If a light needs to be replaced; however, either light will require the same effort to remove and replace.
Skid Plates
Skid plates become important to protect your vehicle, not so much from the rocks, but more from us drivers. When out and about, it seems inevitable that we want to test our trucks’ capabilities all the way to our own driving limits. When that happens, we need a reminder of our limitations that comes before catastrophic damage.
Let me prove I’m old. Remember “back in the day,” people had curb feelers on their cars, little wrapped wire antennas that would make a horrific screeching sound against the curb to prevent damage to those sweet hub caps when you were parking the 90-foot-long Lincoln.
Well thats what underbody skid plates are for me on the Grenadier. When they make contact I can back off to try a different line or back off all together. Rival provides a full compliment of skids that have been easy to install and appear to hold up to the task I’ve assigned for them. They are aluminum, so they are not send it, full-throttle proof, but they appear to be, worse case scenario, slide over the rocks, winch-recovery move survivable. Though I wouldn’t rely on them to protect from repeated hammering that bouncing under throttle creates when tackling a rock garden. Momentum isn’t always our friend.
Fuel Accessories
Just for the fun of it includes stuff like roof racks that I have never been a fan of but considered seriously for the Grenadier for two reasons. One, fuel capacity is an issue for the Grenadier. I found three options for carry fuel. First, Wavian Jerry Cans in Front Runner mounts. I opted for the double horizontal on the rack and a LeTech replacement ladder that can hold a single 20L can for fuel or 22L can for water. Leitner and a few others have side-mounting solutions for water and/or fuel in Jerry cans or Rotopax containers and other things utilizing the Grenadier “Tool Belt.”
Gear Down
The INEOS Grenadier is an uncompromising and impressive enthusiast tool and one of the best, if not the only, 50/50 vehicle offered today. It goes great on road and is not so surprisingly capable off-road. It’s uniqueness is now able to be expanded by the rush of aftermarket companies offering impressive, quality aftermarket support that the INEOS engineers have anticipated, making installation easy, durable and refreshingly sensible.
INEOS hasn’t built the perfect old school, analogue, reasonably-priced off-roader I was hoping for. But they have probably built the best old school, analogue off-roader that can be expected at better than reasonable value.
What I’m thinking about now is who can we piss off to get a new de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver in production.
