ASPEN, Colorado — With snow piled three feet on either side of a mountain trail, I punched twin ceiling buttons to activate front/rear differential lockers on my 2025 Ineos Grenadier tester. GRRRRRRRR! With all four wheels churning in unison in low gear, the British beast charged across the white landscape.

Grenadier may have been born to take on the arid grasslands of Africa, but this Brit feels right at home in America.

For generations, we Yanks have fallen in love with English-made Land Rover 4x4s featured in the movie “Born Free,” National Geographic documentaries and African safari trips. The boxy, rugged, lovable Grenadier is a Rover for a new generation of adventure-seekers.

Grenadier is as familiar as a brawny Jeep Wrangler, as exotic as the BMW drivetrain under its hood, as quirky as a pith-helmeted safari guide. Indeed, it was inspired by Ineos chairman and adventure-seeker Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his safaris with veteran South African guide Charles Van Rensburg. The two friends mourned the passing of the iconic, ladder-framed, solid-axle Land Rover Defender in 2016 (which was finally succeeded by a softer, unibody, independent-suspension SUV in 2020).

The pair brainstormed a Rover replacement that could not only deflect charging elephant tusks on Botswana expeditions (Van Rensburg told me this happens a couple times a year) but also wow U.S. luxury buyers with a hip daily driver. Marshaling the capital resources of petrochemical giant Ineos Group Ltd., billionaire Ratcliffe sought to recreate the Defender to repopulate African safari fleets — and global garages.

The result is Grenadier — a Jeep with an English accent, powered by a German BMW inline-6, and loaded with Ratcliffe’s personality.

Appropriately, this gas-swiggin’, upscale Wrangler has a sibling, the Quartermaster pickup that echoes Jeep’s Gladiator.

I flogged both all over Aspen’s Rocky Mountains and they performed like they had lived there as long as imported European draft horses. Like the World War II-born Jeep and Land Rovers, Grenadier and Quartermaster take their names from English military tradition.

The twins differ only in that the Quartermaster sports a 5.1-foot box out back and reduced rear-seat legroom — in keeping with the cramped back seats of midsize competitors like the GMC Canyon AT4, Chevy Colorado ZR2 and Ford Ranger Raptor.

Step up into Grenadier’s cockpit 10.5 inches off the ground and drop into a WW2 Lancaster aircraft. A waterfall of switches, buttons and dials roll down the console controlling climate, radio, altimeter and more. Altimeter? Yes, the round gauge registered 9,532 feet in the Rockies.

Ratcliffe is also an avid sailor, so naturally the dash is bracketed by red and green hash marks designating, respectively, port and starboard in accordance with maritime colors. Aye aye, Captain.

Overhead are more buttons and switches to manage the aforementioned off-road tools as well as external add-ons like winches and lights. Screens? You get one — atop the dash like a piece of bread that just popped out of a toaster. The Ineos is simple, quirky, mechanical, cool.

I awoke the Lancaster bomber — er, SUV — with an old-fashioned turn-key and thought about running down the airplane checklist with my co-pilot.

Four-wheel drive?

Check.

Altimeter?

Check.

Center differential?

Check.

Twin 12-volt batteries under the rear seat in case one expires in the bush?

Check.

BMW monostable shifter?

Check. What the-?

A small-volume automaker, Ineos shopped for a third-party engine with performance, reliability, brand cache. Cue the 3.0-liter, 281-horsepower, 331-torque, turbocharged inline-6 cylinder ubiquitous in BMWs and paired with that eight-speed automatic monostable shifter. It stands out like a greyhound in a horse barn.

It works. WAAAUHGGHGH! The automatic flicked off buttery shifts up a Rocky Mountain four-lane. More importantly, the monostable quickly engages NEUTRAL so you can engage the big, black transfer-care shifter and shove it into LOW when:

- a blizzard blows in out of nowhere- an off-road trail calls- you need to ford 30 inches of water.

The monostable is accompanied by a rotary BMW-like iDrive dial, which comes in handy when you are heaving over off-road moguls, rendering the touchscreen useless. Bimmer details aide, the Grenadier/Quartermaster exudes testosterone.

The front bumper is made in three pieces so that if — you know, an elephant tusk tears off a corner, then the whole bumper won’t fall off. The steel hood and roof support 350 pounds in case you want to climb up the rear ladder (or pickup bed) and survey the Serengeti while your three Labrador Retrievers nap on the warm hood.

The doors feature MOLLE webbing (as does the cargo bay) so your safari guide can hang baggage off the side. The 17-inch steely wheels (18s optional) are wrapped in 32-inch all-terrain tires so you can survive Colorado creek beds — and Detroit potholes. Then there’s a recessed handle above each of the four doors so you can strap down equipment, Christmas trees, and safari trophy kills to the roof.

More clever features abound like the 30-70 rear cabinet doors, so you can just open one side when you are, say, trailering the Ineo’s 7,716-pound limit. Peek under the Ineos and it wears bright red underwear — the color of its ladder frame.

At 6’7” tall, Grenadier has no more ambition to pull corner g-loads than your kitchen toaster. And its Wrangler-like solid axles mean it has all the on-road driving verve of a tractor. With just 15 mpg fuel economy, the three-ton rhino will need to visit a watering hole every 355 miles.

As its dimensions suggest, Grenadier focuses on offering utilitarian — not performance — upgrades.

A smorgasbord of options are available for all three trims — base Station Wagon, Fieldmaster and Trailmaster. Options include twin sunroofs, snorkel, roof racks, hood pads (so your Labs don’t slip) and shovel. Its 115-foot wheelbase is competitive with Jeeps and old Defenders — not only good for breakover angles off-road, but also for urban parking.

Alas, safety goodies like blind-spot assist and adaptive cruise control are unavailable in keeping with its simplicity theme (finding a service station that can fix electronics is a bear in the African jungle) — but will be missed in the urban jungle. The good news is the same big, square windows Grenadier needs for safari visibility also aid urban visibility.

And Sir Jim has equipped the Grenadier with a secondary red TOOT button on the steering wheel so that you can politely warn a bicyclist that you’re coming without leaning into the horn.

How very British. And very welcome to the American safari.

2025 Ineos Grenadier and Quartermaster

Vehicle type: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive, five-passenger SUV and pickup

Price: $76,700, including $1,600 destination fee (Grenadier); $85,500, including $1,600 destination fee (Quartermaster)

Power plant: 3.0-liter, turbocharged, inline-6 cylinder

Power: 281 horsepower, 331 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: Eight-speed manual

Performance (Grenadier): 0-60 mph, 7.3 seconds (Car and Driver); towing; 7,716 pounds;. top speed: 99 mph

Performance (Quartermaster): 0-60 mph, 8.6 seconds (Car and Driver est.); towing, 7,716 pounds; payload, 1,889 pounds; top speed: 99 mph

Weight: 5,901 pounds (Grenadier as tested); 5,900-6,000 pounds (Quartermaster, est.)

Fuel economy: EPA est. 15 mpg city/15 mpg highway/15 mpg combined (Grenadier); 14 mpg city/14 mpg highway/14 mpg combined (Quartermaster)

Report card

Highs: Retro safari looks, off-road capability

Lows: Handles like a water buffalo on-road; tight Quartermaster rear legroom

Overall: 4 stars

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