INEOS Grenadier experiences outback extremes

The team evaluating the INEOS Grenadier 2B prototype in Australia recently experienced the extremes Australian weather can throw up at travellers.

Heading for South Australia’s Googs Track, which is a sandy track that heads north from Ceduna up into the desert country, the team was caught in a wild storm front that led to flash flooding.

The team sought special permission to use the Googs Track, as it is closed to travellers during summer because of hot temperatures and the risk of getting stranded in such conditions.

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Whirlpool in Outback SA

With daytime temperatures exceeding 35°C, it provided perfect conditions for hot weather testing of a new 4x4 vehicle in soft sand.

The torrential downpour hit the team after they left the Barton Gold Mine at Tarcoola, which marks the northern end of Googs Track, and it dumped so much rain it closed the Outback roads and severed the East and West rail line.

This forced the team back to the Barton Gold Mine, but it wasn’t long before both the INEOS team and the mine were running low on supplies, so they had to seek out a permit and make tracks to the Stuart Highway.

It was on the highway south of Pimba that the road was blocked and the team witnessed the amazing whirlpool and captured it on video (watch it above).

Regular 4X4 Australia contributors Cam Inniss and Cristian Brunelli were on the trip to film the INEOS testing and snapped the whirlpool as well.

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The water over the road again forced a retreat, this time back to the Pimba Roadhouse for the night. The following day the police gave permission for trucks and 4x4s to pass through the floodwaters in convoy, and again the guys captured the spectacle.

The Grenadier prototypes are nearing the end of their global testing phase and have logged more than 1.5 million kilometres in some of the most extreme conditions, just as they found in South Australia.

Order books for the traditional 4x4 vehicle are open now and it will go on sale in Australia in the last part of 2022.