Ineos, the $60 billion British chemical company, surprised the automotive world when it dropped its off-brand Land Rover Defender-like Grenadier on everyone. Now, two years after its debut, Automotive News spoke with the company’s executive vice president for North America to get a status update on the company’s dealer and production plans for the U.S.
If you’re still unfamiliar with Ineos and the Grenadier, that’s okay, because this is all pretty random. Essentially, the company’s founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe wanted to make a Land Rover Defender since the actual Land Rover Defender has turned into a suburban mall crawler for wealthy moms. Ratcliffe tried to buy the old Defender tooling from Land Rover, and of course they said “hell naw.” So he set his company on designing one of his own, which became the Grenadier.
And it’s a proper SUV in the Defender sense. We’re talking body on frame, solid axle, five-link suspension tough. And its power comes from BMW-sourced gas and turbodiesel engines.
Of coursem people saw this thing and said [insert Futurama Fry take my money meme here]. But the real question was this thing coming to the U.S.? That’s the plan, anyway. Production has started on the Grenadier and Ineos’ VP of North America, Greg Clark, says he’s currently reviewing the planned 35 sites that have been selected for Ineos dealers.
And Ineos says customers are waiting. The company claims to have 5,000 reservations here in the U.S. But Automotive News asked a hard hitting question: is the company worried about actually converting those reservations into sales? Clark said there’s nothing to be worried about.
That’s why the first hires were for the positions of director of customer experience, and marketing. The [customer] engagement plan will be on a very regular cadence between now and what we call “Order Day” internally, where we would shift from the taking of reservations to the conversion of those reservations into orders.
The company also seems to be taking a rather picky approach to its dealer selection process, with Clark saying they want dealers that understand that customers want to be part of something bigger, a community.
“Our reservation holders have told us they want to be part of something. They want to meet with like-minded people. They don’t just want to go on a coffee run but on a full weekend or week’s worth of expedition. Potential dealers will understand that and be presenting great ideas for that,” he said.
And while some potential customers or reservation holders might be curious or interested in direct sales, I have bad news. Clark sales direct sales are of no interest to Ineos, but didn’t really give a reason as to why the company isn’t interested in it.
We have no interest in that. While dealers have been very pleased to hear that — and it is refreshing in today’s industry — we need to be making sure we are choosing the right partners. So that’s what is going to occupy us for the next six to nine months, getting these dealers stood up and ready to not only receive dealer demonstrators, which are coming around springtime next year, but training and following up with the order bank, the one we are generating, and their own.
Ineos plans 35 dealers in the U.S. with Clark saying that the company is close to announcing its first dealer location here very soon.