THE SMART WAY TO BUILD CARS

In 12 months of hard graft, Ineos has upgraded Smart's Hambach factory for production of its Grenadier off-roader. Richard Lane is given a tour

- Richard Lane

Things can happen fast in the car industry, but rarely do they happen this fast You've probably heard the story by now. In 2016, rueing the demise of the Land Rover Defender and JLR's decision to replace it with something more haute-automotive, chemical engineering billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, while in the pub, sketches the outline of a 'spiritual successor to the famous off-roader. The difference is that Ratcliffe isn't dreaming. Four years later, the newly formed Ineos Automotive company had physical prototypes, an incipient manufacturing chain of command and, most importantly, somewhere to actually build the finished product. Just 18 months after that, in the here and now, it's almost time to start full-scale production. And all this against the backdrop of you know what.

The factory is what cements Ineos as a serious entity and is why we're now in western France, not far from Strasbourg. While the idea that Ineos was able to buy Mercedes-Benz's Smart-manufacturing Hambach plant in December 2020 and simply begin building Grenadier off-roaders is a nice one, it's also nonsense. The factory's 1000-strong workforce the majority of whom are veterans, having stuck around since the initial Smartville staff intake of 1998 - is highly dependable. And the brand-new paint shop - which was part of a €470 million upgrade that Mercedes only recently lavished on the plant in anticipation of full-scale EQA and EQB electric crossover production and is where enormous emu-feather brushes sweep dust from freshly minted bodies - is state of the art.