BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 152
TRIVIAL PURSUITS
through an eight-speed automatic
gearbox and up to three differential
locks for extreme off-roading. Don’t
worry if you don’t know what a
differential lock is: despite Sir Jim’s
intentions, most Grenadier owners
won’t know either, and I suspect they
will never touch those particular
switches.
“The feel inside is more
premium-utilitarian rather
than pure luxury: think
Belstaff motorcycle jackets, a
company Sir Jim also owns.”
From the outside, you can see why
Land Rover objected. Rather than
employ a conventional car designer,
Sir Jim gave the job to Toby Ecuyer,
the designer of his yachts.
Interior of the Grenadier
The resulting exterior is upright,
functional and rectilinear: not
conventionally handsome, but
certainly not the amorphous blob too
many modern cars become when their
makers prioritise aerodynamic and
energy ef昀椀ciency.
Ecuyer’s contrarian approach works
better inside. Here the modern, Teslaled trend towards controlling most
of a car’s functions via a massive
touchscreen has been rejected in
favour of banks of chunky rocker
switches designed to be operated
in gloves, redolent of a military
helicopter. They even extend to
a panel in the roof. No 昀椀rst-time
passenger will climb aboard (and it
is a climb) without commenting on
them.
For a product from a new carmaker,
the Grenadier feels remarkably wellmade, as if its maker has been doing
this for years. And that’s because it
has.
The Inios Grenadier roof panel
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BOISDALELIFE.COM
ISSUE 24
Sir Jim isn’t daft, and although the
design idiosyncrasies of the Grenadier
are all his, he drafted in experts to
build it. Austrian 昀椀rm Magna-Steyr,
which builds the mighty G-Class for
Mercedes-Benz did the engineering,
and the Grenadier is assembled in
a former Mercedes plant in Alsace,
explaining the entwined British and
French 昀氀ags on the exterior. The doors
close with a pleasingly mechanical,
very 1980s clunk-click, and the feel
inside is more premium-utilitarian
rather than pure luxury: think Belstaff
motorcycle jackets, a company Sir Jim
also owns.
