Going Underground: Ineos Grenadier in Potash Mine Test

Some folks take the INEOS Grenadier and do what it was clearly built for - batter it across the nastiest green lanes and rocky hellscapes known to man. Others, like Sir Jim himself (yes, we’re naming names), take the whole fleet for a gentle pootle across bloomin’ Mongolia... alongside the very first production Land Rover, no less. Then there are those who clock up more miles in a single year than most of us manage in a lifetime.

So, after 1.1 million miles of pre-production torture testing on sand, snow, tarmac, and the sort of claggy mud that clings to everything but your excuses, INEOS thought, “What next?”

Underground, obviously.

Where better to give the Grenadier’s corrosion protection a proper going-over than in one of the saltiest places on Earth? No, not Blackpool promenade after a bad chip shop review - we mean the K+S potash mine in Zielitz, Germany. It’s the biggest potassium-salt mine in the world and just a short 6.5-hour jaunt from INEOS’s Hambach HQ in France. Not exactly around the corner, but if you’re already building hardcore 4x4s, a little road trip’s just part of the fun.

But the important bit here isn’t how far they went - it's how deep. A whopping 1,300 metres below the surface. That’s the same as stacking four Empire State Buildings on top of each other, then standing at the bottom and looking up while wondering why you’re sweating buckets. It's hot down there. So hot, you can only touch the walls for a few seconds before your fingers start regretting life choices. Not that the Grenadier minds. Its air-con handles it like a champ, but that’s not what INEOS were there to test.

This was all about rust. Or, more accurately, stopping it. See, salt is a nightmare for cars. It munches through metal faster than a teenager through a multipack of crisps. So while a few salty winter roads might make a lesser vehicle look like Swiss cheese, the Grenadier’s been built with long-term survival in mind.

Thanks to its full electrocoating, wax-filled cavities and a tough-as-nails powder-coated underbelly, this Grenadier’s been prepped like a steak at a BBQ competition. The aim? To live full-time underground and ferry miners to and fro without dissolving into a pile of oxidised sadness.

Down in the mine, it’s expected to rack up around 40,000 miles per year, proper work, not just posing outside a farm shop. And with a 12-year anti-perforation warranty backing it, INEOS are keen to see just how long it can hack the hostile conditions. Spoiler alert: it might be a while before it shows any sign of weakness.

If you’re into the nerdy side of things (and who isn’t?), give the INEOS electrocoating process a Google. There’s some cracking behind-the-scenes footage of how they dunk the Grenadier at the factory in Hambach—it’s like a car spa day but with more science and fewer cucumber slices.

Until then, just know this: while your 4x4 might wince at a splash of salty slush, there’s a Grenadier deep under Germany that’s laughing in the face of corrosion, sweating through its tyres, and still cracking on with the day job.