Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster pickup review: Flawed but still a guilty pleasure

There are many things in my life that fall under the umbrella of “I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t quite help myself”. These include: eating an entire packet of M&S Insanely Chocolatey Custard Creams in one sitting; watching too many films based on Marvel comic books; buying Lego; staying up too late watching Formula One race repeats on the TV; having just one more glass of wine.

The list is certainly not limited to the above, but that’s as much as I’m prepared to admit in a public forum. However, that list does need expanding by one to include “liking the Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster”.

I know, I know. Captain Anti-SUV suddenly likes an SUV. Except, I don’t. Whatever the Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster is, it’s certainly not an SUV. SUVs are pointlessly tall versions of regular passenger cars that crowd out the roads and pavements around school gates. I’ve done the school run this week in the Quartermaster, and I can tell you it’s most certainly not an SUV.

How about Land Rover pastiche, then? Well, there’s some truth in that – the boss of Ineos, Jim Ratcliffe (latterly of Manchester United and the Mercedes F1 team too) – decided that he didn’t like what Land Rover was doing with its second-generation Defender, and so decided that he’d pivot his gigantic chemical company into making what he considered to be the rightful heir to the original hard-working Land Rover.

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So, a vehicle was designed, a supply of BMW straight-six engines and ZF gearboxes arranged and a factory in Hambach in France, formerly home of the Smart ForTwo, purchased (that despite Radcliffe’s apparent support for Brexit).

The Grenadier duly appeared, looking roughly like a cross between an original Land Rover Defender and an original Mercedes G-Wagen (or, if you’re feeling less generous, a 4x4 that you’d find on the streets in GTA 6, because the game designers didn’t pay a licensing fee).

Noisy, somewhat crude, but certainly rugged and useful (and also very, very expensive), the Grenadier has gone on to at least modest success. The company’s Irish importer, Orangeworks, has a unique arrangement, selling its wares by appointment only at an off-roading and adventure sports complex in the ground of Carton House Hotel, just outside Dublin.

This is the Grenadier Quartermaster, the brand’s first pickup truck, and a model which for the moment Land Rover has no answer. The current Defender can apparently not be rejigged as a pickup, so the goal is almost open for Ineos, aside from the fact that it has to get past the likes of Ford’s Ranger, VW’s Touareg, and Toyota’s Hilux on the way.

There is much that might trip the Quartermaster up en route to the back of the net. Not least is its price tag, which – as tested – is €68,995 before VAT is applied, a price that would get you a top-spec version of any of the other three without worrying about VAT.

Equally, while the Quartermaster has a wide-open rear-load bed, it’s not actually all that roomy, and you have to remove the upright spare tyre from the back if you want to carry a Euro pallet.

Equally, the Grenadier is stuck carrying less than one tonne of payload weight, although that’s true too of the Ford Ranger Raptor.

You can have the Grenadier Quartermaster in a two-seat crew-cab layout, with a vast enclosed load area where the rear seats should be, or as with our test car, you can have the rear seats left well enough alone. Space in those rear seats is tight, but there’s plenty of comfort up front, even with an odd driving position forced on you by the offset of the pedals.

The BMW 3.0-litre engine comes in either petrol or diesel form, and our test car used the 249hp diesel engine. In BMWs, this engine is whisper quiet with a low, deep, brassy grumble when pressed hard.

In the Quartermaster, it sounds like you’re standing in the engine room of a car ferry, and the noise doesn’t really ever go away, even if you can tell that the engine is inherently smooth.

The automatic gearbox is as good as it ever was (this ZF box is by far the best modern auto transmission) but the large live axles, chunky off-road tyres and woeful turning circle all do their bit to make life that bit harder behind the wheel.

Equally, the steering – 3.85-turns lock-to-lock, and with no self-centring – is deeply odd, occasionally obstructive, and takes more than a little getting used to. Three-point turns? Try 20-point.

And yet, I can’t ignore the lure of the Grenadier. Say what you like about its crudity and that fact that it is tantalisingly close to being a piece of agricultural machinery, it is rather good fun.

Take it to some serious off-road sections and the Grenadier lopes about, climbing, clambering, slipping, sliding, descending, and generally getting about like a big metal mountain goat.

The engine is tuned for leisurely performance down low, which is a pain in traffic, but makes perfect sense when you’re trying to carefully eke out torque on a muddy hillside. There are locking differentials and low-range gears for serious terrain, but even amid the mud, standing water, and hills of our test route, none of that was needed – the Grenadier Quartermaster tackled it all as easily as those SUVs tackled the school run, albeit with rather more enjoyment and the fun of (literally) mucking about outdoors.

It’s not a dead loss in more normal driving either. True, refinement is compromised but the Grenadier Quartermaster actually cruises quite nicely on the motorway, once you accept the need for constant steering tweaks to maintain a steady course.

The button-strewn interior is a silly pastiche, but those clunky, meaty, proper buttons feel great to use.

So, yes, the Grenadier Quartermaster is daft. If you’re looking for a hard-working pickup, the Ford, VW, and Toyota options make so much more sense. If you’re looking for something that can go seriously off the beaten track, then the Land Rover Defender is equally talented and yet cruises main roads with the refinement of a Range Rover.

Even so, with the desert camo beige paint job of our test car (officially called Magic Mushroom, yes seriously), the chunky buttons, and the generally old-fashioned approach to motoring, I find myself still charmed by the Grenadier Quartermaster.