Area of interest producer Ineos Automotive is leveraging its private strategy to customer support and a slowly increasing help community to transform Australia’s rusted-on Toyota LandCruiser 70 Sequence loyalists.
Fashioned after Land Rover wouldn’t promote the tooling and manufacturing {hardware} for the unique Land Rover Defender to British billionaire and chemical engineer, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos Automotive at the moment affords SUV and ute variations of the Grenadier 4×4, each of which compete straight with the 70 Sequence.
Nonetheless, Toyota holds a dominant place within the native market, with the 70 Sequence racking up 10,301 gross sales in ute guise alone final 12 months – 1000’s greater than the following hottest heavy-duty ladder-frame off-roader. Ineos, in the meantime, has averaged roughly 1000 gross sales per 12 months since launching Down Underneath in 2022.
That massive discrepancy will be chalked all the way down to a number of elements, together with Toyota’s broadly recognised model, its sprawling community of roughly 300 sellers, and the LandCruiser’s long-held fame for reliability and mechanical simplicity.
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As such, with simply 26 sellers, a reputation nonetheless unfamiliar to many patrons, and a product that is but to reveal its long-term sturdiness, Ineos could be very a lot caught in a David vs Goliath battle to seize market share from its Japanese rival.
However moderately than shrink back from the problem, Ineos is embracing and even exploiting its underdog standing, in line with native boss Justin Hocevar.
“What we simply must do as a workforce is ensure that we’re on our A-game on a regular basis almost about supporting clients wherever they’re,” Mr Hocevar advised CarExpert on the launch of the mannequin 12 months 2026 (MY26) Grenadier.
“We have some tales of people that’ve had one thing occur – one thing’s damaged, or they’ve damaged one thing – in actually distant places, and we have been in a position to snap to consideration, transfer heaven and earth to get an element to them faster than I might say the standardised processes of a big company may do.
“After which it is about giving them the suitable tech help and making the suitable folks accessible as effectively – if any individual who does not actually know the car that effectively has the flexibility to attach with somebody who does – even when that is nearly – then we will actually assist.
“They’re the cases, once they come up, that give us a chance to reveal that even with out the dimensions and would possibly of a big participant like Toyota, you may truly react actually, actually rapidly with fashionable logistics.”
That is to not say Ineos is not trying to enhance its bodily presence in Australia.
Reasonably, the marque has plans to collaborate with unbiased garages to enhance its attain, significantly in regional Australia. This program would see far-flung workshops tackle inventory of Ineos components, in addition to obtain coaching from the manufacturing facility so as to present servicing and repairs.
A small bump in dealership numbers can also be on the playing cards for 2026, after the community quickly shrunk final 12 months because of Ineos’ shift away from an company gross sales mannequin.
“We have now to maintain constructing that community out as effectively, as a result of on the finish of the day, the extra service places in the suitable places, the higher. The problem in doing that for us is our measurement,” stated Mr Hocevar.
“We will solely help so many shops. There isn’t any level getting a seller in a distant location to decide to all the prices related to having a franchise solely to have low throughput there. That is the problem.
“I feel you may see us concentrate on having stronger gross sales and repair shops, not essentially pushing for extra of these, however augmenting our community with some service-only companions.”
Additional methods have been mapped out to sweeten the Ineos possession promise, though they continue to be underneath wraps in the interim.
“We have a couple of extra issues up our sleeve that may come… we’ll make some bulletins all through this 12 months round another issues that we will do to assist help clients,” Mr Hocevar stated.
Earlier makes an attempt by Ineos to broaden its viewers embrace the 2025 “Love It or Depart It” marketing campaign, which gave potential homeowners the choice to ‘promote’ their Grenadier Quartermaster ute again to Ineos inside six months/15,000km of shopping for the car.
