Norwegian chemicals, oil and gas giant Ineos says that it is to build an off-road vehicle to succeed the Land Rover Defender.

A new division, Ineos Automotive (www.ineos.com), will be set up and “many hundreds of millions” will be spent on developing a 4x4 vehicle that could fill the gap in the market left by the Defender, production of which was discontinued by Jaguar Land Rover last year.

The new vehicle will not be a replica of the Defender but will “reflect its philosophy” according to Ineos, which claims that the car will “offer a real and pure alternative to the current crop of standardised jelly-mould SUVs”.

However, industry analysts warn that Ineos faces strong competition in the 4x4 market — from Toyota and from JLR, which is ‘re-purposing’ old Defenders in Solihull and intends to launch a new model in 2019.

David Bailey, professor of industry at Aston University, said: “There may be a small niche market for certain uses and for fans of extreme off-road driving, but there is already quite a lot of competition.”

Ineos founder and chairman Jim Ratcliffe (pictured) said that he wants to sell the off-roader for less than £50,000 and will aim it at farmers, foresters, explorers and enthusiasts.

The company is looking to manufacture the vehicle in the UK, although it is also considering options in Europe. It is hoped to have the first cars available in 2020.

Ineos director Tom Crotty said the company carried out a six-month feasibility study before committing to building the vehicle. “We considered two main issues.

‘Is it possible to manufacture a traditional off-roader that meets global regulations?’ We believe that answer to that is ‘yes’.

‘Is it feasible to manufacture this vehicle from scratch at a cost that we could sell it to the target market?’ Again, the answer is ‘yes’.

“We are one of the biggest UK manufacturers, and we believe that the practices of good manufacturing apply, whatever you are making. However, we are not so arrogant that we think we have nothing to learn, so we are out hiring people from the industry.

“It is a massive undertaking, but we believe we are pretty good at big projects; we have just spent $2 billion on a project that allows us to import gas from the other side of the world.”