Billionaire to put £600m into ‘son of Land Rover' after 68 years out of production
DEVOTEES of the Land Rover Defender – including the Queen – have been given hope that their beloved vehicle, which went out of production in January 2016 after 67 years, may yet rise from the ashes, albeit in a slightly different guise.
Its saviour is businessman Jim Ratcliffe, 64, who despite being Britain’s most successful post-war industrialist with a personal fortune estimated at £8.4billion, is probably the billionaire you have never heard of.
Where the likes of Richard Branson and Philip Green revel in publicity Ratcliffe has spent the past 17 years quietly making his fortune as founder, chairman and major shareholder of petrochemicals powerhouse Ineos.
The company employs 17,000 people and boasts an annual turnover of around £35billion yet it is only now that Ratcliffe is about to invest £600million in manufacturing “the spiritual successor” to the Land Rover Defender that his name is fi ltering through to public consciousness.
On paper he lives up to the stereo type of your average billionaire.
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Having done a stint living in Switzerland he recently moved back to the UK having snapped up mansions in Chelsea and Hampshire with his second wife Alicia.
He loves watersports and skiing with his family and owns a spectacular £120million, 78-metre superyacht complete with helipad.
Ratcliffe is also an adrenaline junkie who se adventures include trips to both the Poles, a threemonth motorbike trek around South Africa and a recent Iron Man competition.
Only last month Forbes ranked him at number 132 on its global list of billionaires.
Not bad for a man who grew up in a Manchester council house until he was 10 when the family moved to Yorkshire.
On leaving school Ratcliffe took up a place at Birmingham University.
Cost finally takes the Land Rover Defender off the road
The UK needs to arrest this decline in manufacturing but it has to make economic sense to build it here
In spite of his wealth Ratcliffe is adamant that his new venture is not about a very rich boy playing with his toys.
This is a businessman who is clearly fired up about the demise of the Defender – he owns four of them – and with it British manufacturing.
Speaking this week at a launch event he refuted suggestions that it’s a “pet” project.
“You don’t spend £600million on a nostalgic dalliance,” he said, before describing the Defender as the “world’s best off-road vehicle”.
Much loved by farmers and the military two million Defenders were sold globally after it went into production in 1948.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) only stopped making the car after concluding that it could not meet increasingly stringent emissions and safety standards.
Although Ratcliffe’s vehicle will not be a replica of the Defender he says that it will refl ect its philosophy as a “cool” off-roader that is an “honest, no-frills farmer’s vehicle and is 100 per cent not a Chelsea tractor”.
When they start rolling off the production line in 2020 his aim is to produce 25,000 of them a year.
Priced at around £35,000 the vehicles will be targeted at a global market including agriculture and forestry workers, explorers and adventurers as well as Defender fans who “enjoy an authentic 4x4 driving experience”.
If he pulls it off it will become Britain’s biggest independent car company, building “uncompromising off-roaders” that can pick up where the Land Rover Defender left off.
It also has the potential to create 10,000 jobs in the UK, 1,000 in the manufacturing facility itself and the rest in the supply chain.
But this will depend heavily on whether Ratcliffe can secure government backing. Without it he may be forced to make use of vacant manufacturing facilities in Germany or elsewhere in Europe that he would not have to set up from scratch.
“The UK needs to arrest this decline in manufacturing but it has to make economic sense to build it here,” Ratcliffe said this week.
“We absolutely want the Government to be involved and we have an emotional attachment to the UK but we can’t let that override the economics.”
Ratcliffe has dubbed his plans “Projekt Grenadier” after the Grenadier pub in London’s Belgravia where he and a few friends dreamt up the idea two years ago, “after the second pint”, while lamenting the demise of the Defender.
The German spelling of “projekt” is apparently a nod to Ineos’s plans to draw on German engineering expertise to ensure that the car was “unbreakable”, unlike the notoriously unreliable Defender, which had more than 7,000 parts.
“When I’m in Africa – and I go on safari every year – I much prefer to be in a Land Rover but I always make sure we have a picnic basket in the back for when it breaks down,” Ratcliffe admitted.
He is now assembling a team of 200 engineers and is closing in on designs for the new car, which will come in diesel, petrol and plug-in hybrid versions.
He has also dismissed concerns that despite his company Ineos having no experience in the risky world of car design he can succeed where other UK companies have failed.
“We would not be doing this if we were not serious about it and thought we could make a profit,” Ratcliffe added.
“We think we know a fair bit about manufacturing from the chemicals side of the business.
Putting in £600million is a lot of money and we have got to balance the books.”
Meanwhile Jaguar Land Rover is said to be working on a new Defender with speculation that it could be launched in 2019 although it will not have the distinctive utilitarian features of old.
As for Jim Ratcliffe’s new 4x4, it still doesn’t have a name.
“We’re running a competition for the name but it’s like a child – you need to see it before you name it,” he said.
One thing is certain: you can bet that it will be the thrill-seeking billionaire who is first to take a test drive over challenging terrain.
