At the Goodwood Festival of Speed over the summer, Ineos Automotive debuted the Grenadier Quartermaster pickup. Developed in conjunction with the Grenadier station wagon already on sale here, Ineos extended the Quartermaster’s wheelbase 12 inches beyond the wagon’s span to ensure healthy room for a five-seater double cab; the 129-inch wheelbase is a hair longer than that of the 2024 Ford Ranger SuperCrew. The Quartermaster’s bed measures 61.6 inches long, two inches longer than the five-foot Styleside bed on the Ranger. Payload maxes out at 1,675 pounds, strapping made easier thanks to four tie-downs in the bed. The heavy duty tailgate is rated to support 496 pounds when open. Towing matches the 7,716-pound rating for the wagon, and a 400-watt power take-off comes standard. Pickup production is now under way at Ineos’ factory in Hambach, France, on the same lines running the Grenadier wagon.
European deliveries are scheduled for this month, followed by Asia Pacific, African, and Middle Eastern markets, then the U.S. in “early 2024.” A chassis cab model is due in 2024, the bare bones ready for conversion companies to do their work.
Naturally, we don’t have U.S. pricing for the pickup yet. Trying to use European pricing to judge where the pickup will be priced in relation to the wagon is difficult, since pricing varies quite a bit by country. The European markets we looked into outside the UK into don’t get a base Grenadier wagon trim like we do, nor a base Quartermaster trim — they’ve launched exclusively with the more expensive Fieldmaster and Trailmaster Editions for both body styles. Those trims start at $79,500 here. The fancy wagon and pickup cost the same in Germany, the wagon is €500 more expensive than the pickup in France, €10,000 more expensive than the pickup in Spain, and £2,000 more expensive than the pickup in the U.K.
We suppose the better question would be how Ineos plans to get the pickup here, considering our 25% so-called Chicken Tax on imported pickups and work vans will be waiting for the Quartermaster at the port. The authorities frown on automakers importing decoy vehicles that get locally converted into trucks that would be taxed otherwise, for example, Mercedes’ convolutions with the Sprinter and Ford’s with the Transit Connect. We haven’t heard of any domestic manufacturing partnerships to get the truck built domestically, and the wheelbase difference between the wagon and pickup means Ineos would have a hard time doing that, anyway. If Ineos decides to lump the tax into the price, the Quartermaster suddenly gets uncomfortably close to six figures. We look forward to finding out how this mystery gets solved.
Source: www.autoblog.com