Niche manufacturer Ineos Automotive is using its personal approach to customer service and a slowly growing support network to convert Australia’s rusty Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series loyalists.
Founded after Land Rover failed to sell the tooling and manufacturing parts for the original Land Rover Defender to British billionaire chemical engineer Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos Automotive currently offers SUV and ute versions of the Grenadier 4×4, both of which directly compete with the 70 Series.
However, Toyota occupies a dominant position in the local market: the 70 Series recorded 10,301 light van sales last year alone – thousands more than the second most popular heavy-duty ladder-frame SUV. Ineos, on the other hand, has averaged around 1,000 sales per year since its launch Down Under in 2022.
This huge discrepancy can be attributed to several factors, including Toyota’s widely recognized brand, its extensive network of approximately 300 dealers, and the LandCruiser’s long-standing reputation for reliability and mechanical simplicity.
With Daily Sparkz you can save thousands on a new car. Click Here to get a great deal.
With just 26 dealers, a name still unfamiliar to many buyers and a product that has yet to prove its long-term durability, Ineos finds itself in a David versus Goliath battle to capture market share from its Japanese rival.
But rather than shying away from the challenge, Ineos is embracing its status as an outsider and even exploiting it, according to local boss Justin Hocevar.
“What we simply need to do as a team is ensure that we are always at our best when it comes to supporting customers wherever they are,” Mr Hocevar said Daily Sparkz at the start of the 2026 model year (MY26) Grenadier.
“We have some stories of people having something happen to them – something broke or they broke something – in really remote places, and we were able to get attention and move heaven and earth to get them a part quicker than I would say would be possible with the standardized processes of a large company.”
“And then it’s about offering them the right technical support and also making the right people accessible – if someone who doesn’t know the vehicle that well has the opportunity to get in touch with someone who does – even if just virtually – then we can really help.”
“It is the examples that, when they occur, give us the opportunity to show that with modern logistics you can react very, very quickly even without the size and power of a large player like Toyota.”
That’s not to say Ineos doesn’t want to expand its physical presence in Australia.
Rather, the brand plans to work with independent repairers to increase its reach, particularly in regional Australia. Under this program, widely dispersed workshops would take delivery of a stock of Ineos parts and be trained by the factory to carry out maintenance and repair work.
A slight increase in dealer numbers is also expected in 2026, after the network temporarily shrank last year due to Ineos’ move away from the agency sales model.
“We also have to continue to expand this network, because ultimately the more service locations in the right locations, the better. The challenge for us lies in our size,” said Mr. Hocevar.
“We can only support a limited number of stores. It doesn’t make sense to force a retailer in a remote location to incur all the costs associated with a franchise just to have low throughput there. That’s the challenge.”
“I think you’ll see us focus on having stronger sales and service locations, not necessarily pushing to create more of those, but expanding our network with some service-only partners.”
Other strategies have been devised to sweeten Ineos’ ownership promise, but these remain under wraps for now.
“We have a few more things up our sleeves to come…we’ll be making some announcements throughout the year on some other things we’ll be doing to support customers,” Mr Hocevar said.
Ineos’ previous attempts to expand its audience included the Love It or Leave It campaign in 2025, which gave potential owners the opportunity to sell their Grenadier Quartermaster back to Ineos within six months or 15,000 km of purchasing the vehicle.
MORE: Explore the Ineos Grenadier showroom
