Niche manufacturer Ineos Automotive is leveraging its personal approach to customer service and a slowly expanding support network to convert Australia’s rusted-on Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series loyalists.
Formed after Land Rover wouldn’t sell the tooling and manufacturing hardware for the original Land Rover Defender to British billionaire and chemical engineer, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos Automotive currently offers SUV and ute versions of the Grenadier 4×4, both of which compete directly with the 70 Series.
However, Toyota holds a dominant position in the local market, with the 70 Series racking up 10,301 sales in ute guise alone last year – thousands more than the next most popular heavy-duty ladder-frame off-roader. Ineos, meanwhile, has averaged roughly 1000 sales per year since launching Down Under in 2022.
That huge discrepancy can be chalked down to several factors, including Toyota’s widely recognised brand, its sprawling network of approximately 300 dealers, and the LandCruiser’s long-held reputation for reliability and mechanical simplicity.
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As such, with just 26 dealers, a name still unfamiliar to many buyers, and a product that’s yet to demonstrate its long-term durability, Ineos is very much caught in a David vs Goliath battle to capture market share from its Japanese rival.
But rather than shy away from the challenge, Ineos is embracing and even exploiting its underdog status, according to local boss Justin Hocevar.
“What we just have to do as a team is make sure that we are on our A-game all the time with regards to supporting customers wherever they are,” Mr Hocevar told CarExpert at the launch of the model year 2026 (MY26) Grenadier.
“We’ve got some stories of people who’ve had something happen – something’s broken, or they’ve broken something – in really remote locations, and we’ve been able to snap to attention, move heaven and earth to get a part to them quicker than I would say the standardised processes of a large corporate could do.
“And then it’s about giving them the right tech support and making the right people accessible as well – if somebody who doesn’t really know the vehicle that well has the ability to connect with someone who does – even if that’s virtually – then we can really help.
“They’re the instances, when they arise, that give us an opportunity to demonstrate that even without the scale and might of a large player like Toyota, you can actually react really, really quickly with modern logistics.”
That’s not to say Ineos isn’t looking to increase its physical presence in Australia.
Rather, the marque has plans to collaborate with independent garages to improve its reach, particularly in regional Australia. This program would see far-flung workshops take on stock of Ineos parts, as well as receive training from the factory in order to provide servicing and repairs.
A small bump in dealership numbers is also on the cards for 2026, after the network temporarily shrunk last year due to Ineos’ shift away from an agency sales model.
“We have to keep building that network out as well, because at the end of the day, the more service locations in the right locations, the better. The challenge in doing that for us is our size,” said Mr Hocevar.
“We can only support so many outlets. There’s no point getting a dealer in a remote location to commit to all the costs associated with having a franchise only to have low throughput there. That’s the challenge.
“I think you’ll see us focus on having stronger sales and service outlets, not necessarily pushing for more of those, but augmenting our network with some service-only partners.”
Further strategies have been mapped out to sweeten the Ineos ownership promise, although they remain under wraps for the time being.
“We’ve got a few more things up our sleeve that will come… we’ll make some announcements throughout this year around some other things that we’re going to do to help support customers,” Mr Hocevar said.
Previous attempts by Ineos to broaden its audience include the 2025 “Love It or Leave It” campaign, which gave prospective owners the option to ‘sell’ their Grenadier Quartermaster ute back to Ineos within six months/15,000km of buying the vehicle.
