Exploring the Flinders Ranges in the Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster

Arid desert plains meander for miles down to crystal clear ocean shores. I’m floored by the uniqueness of this area– an ancient biome I’m very rarely exposed to. Traversing this place, I’m reminded again and again of the indomitable progress of time – how many aeons will pass in the blink of an eye, without any significant geographical change? Flashes of dark green and clouds of red dirt are the only indicators of the distance we are covering, specs of dust on the back of an immense landscape.  Its humbling moving between valleys carved hundreds of millions of years in the past, unnoticed by the few forms of life that can survive here, and often unnerving to comprehend the remoteness we find ourselves in.

All of this I’m thinking about as I’m flying down the highway at 110km/h, driving an Ineos Grenadier for the first time on the Media Release of the new Quartermaster. A marvel of European engineering – if I was to picture, in my mind’s eye, the perfect vehicle for a journey like this, the Quartermaster would be spot on. Highway driving, sand dunes, dirt tracks and river crossings, the vehicles easily transport us straight into the heart of the Flinders Ranges. Like the Indigenous Adnyamathanha people who have inhabited this area for tens of thousands of years, it takes a special kind of resilience to survive in this landscape – mental and physical toughness that will withstand the scorched environment that stretches as far as the eye can see. To not only withstand this terrain, but to do so to such a level of both capability and comfort is no easy feat. Sure, there are many vehicles out there that could make do out here, but to truly THRIVE – it’s hard to imagine anything compares to the Ineos Grenadier.

Dreamt up in the backrooms of a dark London pub, this relatively young brand is steeped in rich history and tradition. Created to specifically address a niche in the current automotive market, Ineos Grenadiers are cars built by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, with a focus on off-road performance. A high-end performance utility vehicle that offers comfort on the long haul. High towing and payload capacity, high ground clearance and incredible performance at a mid-range price. This all might well sound like car-jargon (it does to me) but what it translates to is a vehicle that will go virtually anywhere and do virtually anything, with many of the comforts of a modern car and without compromising on performance or price. Think an African safari, hauling lumber in the Canadian Rockies or exploring the vast swathes of barren landscape across Australia – this car will do it all.
Many of the vehicles I’ve been exposed to that are built for this, are decades old and drive/feel like a tank. Alternatively, they are over-engineered to the point of alienation – featuring hundreds of computers that, while designed to make life easier, end up just being more points of failure. The Grenadiers actively combat this feeling of ultra-modernization by limiting the number of CPUs, installing tensile buttons that can be used eyes-free & with gloves, and designing the interior for functionality.

What this also means is that operation of the vehicle is incredibly intuitive. I’ll be the first to admit – I don’t drive a lot of cars like this – so to be able to hop behind the wheel and almost immediately push it into some wild terrain was pretty unexpected. Obviously, we didn’t push too hard (no one wants to be the guy to roll a brand new $100,000 car), but I was amazed by how predictably this car would react to unpredictable situations: over sand dunes and through rough track, dodging saltbush and fence lines. I was not alone in this either – my co-pilot, incredible Ultra-Runner and Ineos Athlete Lucy Bartholemew, graciously jumped behind the wheel whilst I had my camera glued to the landscape – able to smoothly navigate terrain the likes of which she had never driven in, only a slight death grip on the wheel belying the confidence of a seasoned off-road driver.

It was with the many hundreds of kms we put under the wheels, sharing the cab with Pamela the Manager of Concept Development Engineering and Lucy, that I also got to know what drew two such remarkable women to Ineos. The ethos is steadfastly supportive of those who wish to push the boundaries, built around collaboration in the pursuit of adventure. Both were had been recognized as heads of their fields and felt free and supported to explore what an adventurous lifestyle means to them. For Lucy, this is having a vehicle she could reliably travel between 100-mile races in, carrying her gear and team – never being worried about missing the start line. For Pamela, it means having the opportunity to pursue innovative ideas and improve on current automotive conventions in a progressive work environment. Furthermore, talking to Justin (Head of Asia Pacific), I learned about the close customer and dealer networks that he strives to maintain with growth in the brand. Trying to avoid the disconnected and corporatized environment that the automotive industry has become, Ineos Grenadier is aimed at getting back to focusing on their core community: car enthusiasts. Community engagement is a focus for the future, and there was talk of many adventure travel customer tours on the horizon.  Ineos, by way of its founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe, have also consistently supported a variety of causes, creating opportunities within sports and funding wildlife rehabilitation.  This might have a certain poetic irony, especially once we visited the fossil fields at Nilpena – one of only a few sites in the world that show Ediacaran soft-bodied marine organisms dating back 500 million years – and I tried to rationalize learning about fossils while traipsing around in big fossil-fuel guzzling cars. In my head however, I see this car as a specific tool for a job. Not mass produced, nor to be as widely distributed as possible. For the specific job of accessing hard to reach places, the technology isn’t quite ready for a less environmentally impactful solution yet – but Ineos is funding the development of such technologies. In the meantime, this engine will have to do for the comparatively small use-case to which this car is marketed.

Now be aware, this is far from the luxury car which you might well expect from this price point, without all the bells and whistles that the competition might provide – however, the flipside of this is that the Grenadier is more reliable and capable in much harsher terrain. That’s not to say that it isn’t a smooth ride – with low-range utilizing the full gearbox up to 8^th, leather upholstery, coil springs in the rear and a stock ground clearance of 264mm, even over the dunes, rock crossings and many washouts we hit the car didn’t leave me feeling jolted or sore.

It wasn’t until later one evening that I was able to really comprehend the opportunity I had been given, and my favorite part of the trip. Towards the end of the first day, after we’d covered nearly 500km of highway, dirt and sand we were heading through the Parachilna Gorge toward Wilpena Pound. Winding our way through this prehistoric area, with golden afternoon sunlight filtering down through the gorgeous rocky landscape, I was in awe. Families of emus and rock wallabies wandered alongside the road, unfazed by the procession of 4WDs (a testament to how quiet they are) crawling towards Wilpena Pound and home for the night. Here is where I finally understood it – the attraction of a car like this. To be able to visit wild places like this in comfort, without worrying about getting stuck or breaking down, is phenomenal. Gliding through huge swathes of land punctuated by imposing formations, I didn’t feel vulnerable in the slightest, confident the car would handle whatever I could throw at it. To have access to learn about such culturally rich places like this in Australia is invaluable. Sitting around the fire at a smoking ceremony that night, trying to spot some stars through the encroaching cloud cover, we learned that Wilpena Pound is named Ikara in the Adnyamathanha language and roughly translates to “meeting place”. A place to which many tribes would travel to stay during specific times of year to share meals and knowledge. For us too, it had become a meeting place to learn and share experiences, and I could not help but imagine all the other incredible places this car might allow me to see.