More details about the Ineos Grenadier have been revealed but the one that’ll be of most interest to off-roaders is the fact there’ll be no manual transmission.
Ineos Automotive has been busy. It revealed the exterior of the new Grenadier back in July, fought off Land Rover in court, and then, this week, dropped its latest video detailing the engines, transmission and the testing locations, which it’s been confirmed will include Australia and New Zealand.
In a new video released this week, Ineos Automotive revealed a little more about the engines for the Grenadier and why there would be no manual transmission. Ineos Automotive is working with engineering giant, Magna, on the development of the Grenadier.
The Grenadier will be powered by either a 3.0-litre straight six petrol or diesel engine from BMW with Magna suggesting it was the best choice for the project because of its performance, reliability and tunability (particularly around meeting global emission standards.
“The most important thing we need is to have a high amount of torque available at low engine revs…and to have a reliable engine…we can count on the BMW engine,” said Georg Fuchs, module group lead engineer – powertrain.
And Job Zwollo, the Ineos engineering project manager and the bloke responsible for the transmission and the transfer case, confirmed there would be no manual transmission for the Grenadier. “We believe the auto is the best choice for the enthusiast and less experienced driver”. That means, the Grenadier will run a ZF eight-speed automatic transmission. “It’s the best in class,” Zwollo said.
So, what about the transfer case, is that an off-the-shelf product? No, said Zwollo, rather it was developed from a “black sheet of paper”. As such, the Grenadier will be permanent all-wheel drive. High- and low-range will be manual selection as will be the diff lock activation.
But don’t go thinking you’ll be seeing a Grenadier anytime soon. According to Zwollo there’s still another 12 months, at least, of testing. Magna has built 100 prototypes which will begin testing all around the world, including in Australia and New Zealand. “We’re going to see America, Africa, New Zealand this year, Australia, everywhere,” Zwollo said.
As mentioned, Ineos Automotive has just fought off Land Rover in court after Land Rover accused Ineos of infringing on the design patent of the Defender. The court ruled in Ineos’ favour but to rub salt into the wound, Ineos is calling its development vehicles 2As.
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