My thoughts exactly . A few people are holding on waiting to see how the first year of ownership goes . To be fair in my eyes the new defender and the grenadier are two completely different vehicles with different priorities . Bang for buck i think the grenadier is winning .
INEOS GRENADIER
- Thread starter Rutland lad
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spannulman
Well-Known Member
Hear hear. I’ve seen a few little mentions like that in bb’s posts and often thought the same.
Virtual pub , old time war stories . Count me in . Ahhaha .
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
The G wagen summer 1977, we were doing all the body in white design drafting in high summer 35 plus degrees in the bottom floor of a block of flats in the Graz city centre that the agent "Peters & Zabransky" had rented out all the 3x flats on that floor and turned them into a drafting office, it had no aircon and a wall was all around the outside 3 metres away as anti break in so there was no air circulation available, it was a pure sweatbox and we were all doing 12-14 hours on our elbows drafting away for dollars on all of the 11 different vatiants (baumuster 1-11). I seldom used other than a straight edge and compass while whittling away on the drafting film and it shows in the shapes, I never heard about a clay model being done first to prove out the shape as is industry normal.
Audi TT, in 1995 I had just got back from Holland Michigan and I had been freshly trained in using Catia CAD which is the industry standard for cars and aircraft. I was there for a couple of weeks then I was put on the door design. The Austrian chief engineer told me to add a side impact door beam inside the door to protect the H point "hip area", he wanted me to add another bracket between the two front hinges to take this beam, the rear would lock onto the lock plate in the door. "What if "say I "we just angle the beam up as it goes forward and it can hook up with the top hinges strong point bracket that is already there as it is then well away from the hip, you will save two brackets per car plus welding and logistics and weight reduction with no loss on performance"? "Ah" says he "you are now my new door engineer", that's when I stopped drafting and became an engineer without having anything except some City & Guilds certificates behind me. Learning Catia CAD was an expensive waste of time for me as the versions have totally changed over the years.
This feels like i just watched the pilot episode of my new favourite series .
As a wannabe engineer this is the kind of stories i love hearing from interesting people who have excelled at their field .
So there were 11 types of Gelandewagen prototypes ? or just 11 variants initially ? As for the shape the boxy look of the G wagon is just timeless quite like it .
Now regarding the TT i think that answer was just a practical enginer not blindly following orders , and it was rewarded . Unlike some other places where expressing a differnet opinion is shut down as rocking the boat . Kudos To the Chief engineer for recognizing game.
I hope the Austrians at least had a stocked fridge of beer for refreshements .
Much appreciate you sharing your stories ! Thank you sir .
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
A typical problem of steel to aluminium connections Land Rovers always had. I also noticed that the hinges had a strange lip facing rearward on the doors at a 3mm stand off from the body that would need a pipe cleaner into this recess to get the crap out of it and it creates a mud trap and a waste of metal (extra weight/cost too) with x8 hinges (bonnet, tailgate and two doors used per vehicle maybe 10x on a 4 door version.
Audi had a neat solution to this years ago where they used a sheet bitumen/copper wire inserted gasket between the two metals that reduced the electrical conductivity to prevent corrosion.
Re the 11 variants of G Wagen. There were short & long wheelbases, 5 seaters, 2 seaters, cloth topped military, hard top military, radio cars, Steyr Austrian army versions and Mercedes all the rest versions. I have watched them over the years and I believe they must use recycled Fiat Alfasud steel from Algeria as they all seem to be rust buckets even when at 250K kilometres they are selling for 20K Euros upwards.
BTW if anyone wants to go into car body engineering PM me and I will let you know how to get up and running, pays around 70 Euros per hour in Europe, that was 5 years ago.
My favourite G Wagon was the LWB van they did. Only 12 were ever imported to the UK with most going to fire brigades. Even pictures online are very rare.
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
I would advise waiting for at least six months after sales begin before taking one as the first customers for all new vehicles are the final test drivers that catch things that were missed. Ineos has not the test budget of a major manufacturer the vehicles often have to go back to be modified. This is true from Fords up to Mercedes and above.
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