Quick: Think of an SUV. Regardless of which specific model popped into your head, it's likely a pretty basic two-box shape that sits well off the ground and has short overhangs front and rear. It probably looked a lot like the seminal Land Rover Defender. And as it turns out, that design is so basic that Jaguar Land Rover just lost a court case in the U.K. to trademark the SUV's shape in an effort to halt the continued development of the recently unveiled Ineos Grenadier.

Ineos Group chairman and well-known British adventurer and billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made no qualms over the fact that the Grenadier is inspired by the old-school Defender, equipped as it is with a full frame underneath its boxy bodywork and solid axles front and rear. In fact, Ratcliffe tried to buy the Defender's tooling from Land Rover after the automaker abandoned its classic design in favor of a radically updated unibody replacement. When Land Rover declined, he set out to build a suitable replacement, which we now know as the Grenadier.

The Ineos offering is “A design that is ‘easy-to-read,’ with no ambiguity about the Grenadier’s role in life," according Toby Ecuyer, the Grenadier's head designer. Despite the fact that the Grenadier is unambiguously inspired by the Defender, the U.K.'s Intellectual Property Office declined to grant Land Rover a trademark for the Defender's design, ruling that it's not distinctive enough.

According to Bloomberg, Ineos responded in a statement that the court's ruling confirms "that the shape of the Defender does not serve as a badge of origin for JLR’s goods. ... We continue with our launch plans and are excited to bring The Grenadier to market in 2021." We're excited, too. But we have to wonder if maybe Land Rover should have sought out the same judge that ruled in favor of Jeep over Mahindra.

Just before Land Rover launched the new Defender, the automaker said the reborn icon had been put through 1.2 million kilometers of testing. We're not sure if it's Ineos ribbing the established competition, but the petrochemical-company-turned-truck-maker likes to stress that its Grenadier will be put through 1.8 million kilometers of testing before being released for sale to the public. That's what's happened (again) in the fifth video documenting the progress of the Grenadier, host Mark Evans hopping back to Austria for updates on calibration for the gas and diesel 3.0-liter BMW inline-sixes, the ZF eight-speed automatic transmission, and the bespoke transfer case.

Let's get the bad news out of the way first: That ZF eight-speed auto will be the only transmission offered. The gearbox has a manual mode for those who know what they're doing to choose the gear they want, but the development team decided against a manual because "the auto is the best option. It offers the full suite of functionality for the experienced drivers but also for the inexperienced drivers." Hardcore old-school off-roaders are already heading for the door, we know. Yet there are plenty of workaday utilitarian types who have plenty of other things to do than worry about shifting gears. And in the U.S., Toyota hasn't offered a manual Land Cruiser in donkey's years, but you'll hear few overlanders say a bad thing about it (well, about that part of it...).

We're sure the choice of BMW engines made it easier to go exclusively with a ZF transmission (Toyota, again, did the same thing, eh?). We're on the record as saying we're looking forward to this vehicle, but — not to be cynics — we're also looking forward to hearing the first stories of Grenadiers breaking down in the bush, because we want to know, 1. What breaks under hard yards, and 2. How easy it is to get parts for a modern BMW engine in the bush.

The two-speed transfer was drawn up from a blank sheet of paper and provides full-time four-wheel drive. High- and low-range and the differential lock are manually selected. Gearbox engineer Job Zwollow does say "diff lock," singular; however, there will be a center diff lock standard on the Grenadier and locking diffs for the front and rear axles available as cost options. That info on the diffs comes from a Facebook Q&A Evans hosted to answer the enthusiast public's questions, and it gets into arcane details such as articulation, trailing arms, and wheel bearings among many other things.

Over the next year or more, Ineos will build 100 vehicle prototypes and dispatch them around the world, working to avoid the aforementioned breakages, so there's no telling what will change between now and 2023. The company's still making all the right noises, though, with one of its engineers saying it's "critical that this vehicle is simple and easy to maintain, which is why we're avoiding any complexity that isn't required to make this a workhorse utility vehicle."

British chemical giant Ineos developed the Grenadier, its first car, as a no-nonsense off-roader that picks up where classic 4x4s left off. It proved its point by displaying a prototype next to some of the models that inspired it.

Seeing the Grenadier parked next to a 1988 Mercedes-Benz G-Class, a 1980 Toyota FJ40, a 1944 ****** Jeep, and the first production Land Rover (a Series I) puts its dimensions and proportions into context. It dwarfs the Series I and the ******, and it's comfortably bigger than the FJ40. It looks reasonably close in size to the first G, and the two off-roaders share a handful of styling cues, including round headlights and nearly flat fenders.One well-known off-roader wasn't invited to the party: the original Land Rover Defender, successor to the Series models. Odds are its invitation didn't get lost in the mail. Land Rover sued Ineos over the Grenadier's design and lost the case in August 2020. And of course the classic Land Rover box was ticked by the Series I. Interestingly, the Grenadier wouldn't have been developed had Land Rover agreed to sell Ineos the rights to build the original Defender after it ended production in 2016 to develop the new-generation model.

Ineos explained all of the aforementioned classics inspired its car-building division as it created the Grenadier.

"At the outset of the Grenadier project, we brought some of the great 4x4s of the past into the studio to look closely at what made them so enduring. And now, it's fantastic to see Grenadier in the company of these legends. You can see common design traits and proportions, and certainly the same clarity of purpose. I think the Grenadier sits very naturally among these 4x4 icons, and if others agree, then we've achieved our design objective," explained Toby Ecuyer, Ineos Automotive's head of design, in a statement.

Ineos will continue testing Grenadier prototypes in the coming months. It wants its fleet to log at least 1.1 million collective miles on and off the road, in some of the most remorselessly inhospitable parts of the globe. Sales will start in late 2021, though there's no indication the model will be sold in the United States, and production might take place in the same Hambach, France, factory that built the Smart ForTwo for over two decades.

British chemical giant Ineos is wading into the automotive industry to build an old-school, no-nonsense off-roader that picks up where the original Land Rover Defender left off in 2016. It unveiled the Grenadier's boxy exterior design in June 2020 but shared no details about the interior. Over a year later, it has finally lifted the veil off the cabin.

Designers took an unabashedly function-over-form approach to shaping nearly everything the passengers will see, touch, and interact with. Sitting behind the wheel feels more like being in a plane's cockpit than in a modern SUV. The driver faces a two-spoke multi-function steering wheel, a small digital instrument cluster, and low dashboard that clears up an unobstructed view of what's ahead. Good visibility is important when you're running errands, but it can become a matter of life or death when you're somewhere deep in the jungle on a muddy, rock-strewn trail.

In an era when nearly every carmaker brags about replacing buttons with touch-sensitive surfaces, the Grenadier is refreshingly simple. Features like the heated front seats, the air conditioning system, and the parking sensors are controlled via buttons and dials neatly arranged on the upright center stack. Additional switches are grouped on a panel above the front seats, including a few added for users who need to install accessories such as a winch or work lights. It's also interesting to note the buttons are wide and positioned relatively far apart; that's because some drivers will operate them with gloves on. As a side note, Saab pioneered this concept in the first-generation 900.

​​​​​​​Building a functional off-roader doesn't mean fully eschewing technology; there are plenty of 30-year-old 4x4s looking for a new home if that's what you're after. Ineos added a 12.3-inch touchscreen on top of the center stack, right above a compass with a built-in altimeter and thermometer, and the software is compatible with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Navigation is provided by software named Pathfinder that reportedly works even off-road.

Recaro seats come standard, yet the Grenadier is designed to get muddy. It's fitted with water-resistant upholstery, rubber flooring, and drain plugs in the floors, so it can be hosed out. Alternatively, buyers seeking a slightly more upmarket SUV can order carpet and leather upholstery. Several customization options are available as well. And, while the Grenadier was largely designed on a clean sheet of paper, the familiar-looking gear selector poking out from the center console hints that it's available with a BMW-sourced 3.0-liter turbodiesel straight-six engine.

Ineos will begin taking orders for the Grenadier in October 2021, and deliveries are scheduled to begin in July 2022. Production will take place in the Hambach, France, factory that manufactured the Smart Fortwo for decades. Until then, a fleet of 130 prototypes will accumulate over 1.1 million test miles on some of the planet's roughest terrain.