To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Classic Car Restoration, JDM, and Automotive History

Off-Roading the INEOS Grenadier, Land Cruiser Memories & Wrenching with Confidence

• To All The Cars I've Loved Before • Season 8 • Episode 9

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From surviving a scary collision in a massive Toyota Land Cruiser as a teenager to swapping out suspension springs on a 7,500-lb INEOS Grenadier in her driveway, Anastasia Kim Carpenter proves that taking the path less traveled is always the best route!

In this episode of To All The Cars I've Loved Before, Doug sits down with Anastasia—founder of the Women's INEOS Grenadier Club—to talk about the rapidly growing world of overlanding, off-roading, and female empowerment in the automotive space. Anastasia shares incredible stories from her youth balancing Vaganova ballet with driving rugged 4x4s, explains the fascinating origins of the INEOS Grenadier, and breaks down the real challenges (and massive rewards!) of being an early adopter of a brand-new, highly capable off-road vehicle.

Don't miss Anastasia's favorite episode with superstar father-daughter duo, Dane and Riley from Riley's Rebuilds - https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/18447947

If you love tales from the trail, hands-on wrenching, and the magic of sitting around a campfire after a long day of wheeling, this episode is for you!

In this episode, we cover:

  • 🚙 The Land Cruiser Days: Anastasia’s teenage years behind the wheel of big, burly Toyota Land Cruisers—including a white 5th-gen, a blue one that saved her in a scary collision, and a River Rock Green Mica 6th-gen! 
  • 🩰 Ballet Meets 4x4s: The hilarious contrast of driving a massive 4x4 to a Nutcracker rehearsal as a ballerina. 
  • 🔧 The INEOS Grenadier: Why she fell in love with the utilitarian, ladder-frame INEOS Grenadier (Trial Master edition) and how she tackles complex DIY mods like installing Eibach springs. 
  • 💪 Women in Motorsport: The inspiring story behind founding the Women's INEOS Grenadier Club to empower female off-roaders to take control in the garage and on the trail. 
  • 🍻 Trivia Time: Find out exactly where INEOS founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe first sketched the concept for the Grenadier! 

Connect with Us: Got a great car story? Email us at stories@carsloved.com. Find all our content and social links here: linktr.ee/carsloved.

Podcast News:


Remember, every car tells a story. What’s yours? 


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Welcome, Sponsor, App, And Guest

Doug

Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before It, the only podcast that shares life lessons through the rear view mirror of your favorite cars. It's time to get a little grease under your nails. Grab your favorite car theme t-shirt or hat, jump in our Devorean time machine, get it up to 88, and get back to that first sense of pure freedom. The windows down, the music pegged, and your best friends piled in the back. Every car tells a story, whether it's that forgotten beater or the one that got away. We're gonna dive into the personal history behind the metal, so let's get into it. I'm Doug, I'm your co co-host, slash host for today. Dave's not available. And jumping right into it, we want to thank today's sponsor, Suspension.news. Let's face it, car news is scattered across hundreds of sites, newsletters, subreddits, and press prints. Who has the time? Suspension.news was designed to fix this. It pulls back all the noise into a quick two-minute read coming directly into your inbox every morning. Today I learned about Honda's former CEO calling on the current CEO to quit due to the fallout from the multi-billion dollar EV strategy loss and controversies surrounding Tesla's FSD autopilot data sharing with EU regulators. So check it out and subscribe. Guarantee it'll make your life a lot easier to get the latest automotive news. Suspension.news, best of all, it's free. And for our guests, if you are enjoying the podcast, the best way to support us is to leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or share the show with a friend who misses their first ride. And while you're at it, we have a great update. So we have an app. The app is called Every Car Tells a Story. You can find it on App Store, Apple App Store for now, or you can find it on our link tree with all our other content.ee slash carslove. So when they say there's an app for that, you can listen to Every Car Tells a Story to all the cars I've loved before without going through a different podcast player. Moving on, and I'm really excited about today's guest. We have found a great calling with women who love cars, motorsports, and more. And following this ever-growing segment segment, today's guest is a dynamic young lady who caught my eye with her rise as the founder of the Women Ineos Grenadier Club. Anastasia Kim Carpenter founded this club with the goal to empower women by providing an exciting and educational off-road experiences, creating a global sisterhood of trailblazers who defy limits. The club bridges the gap between the Ineos brand, which we're going to talk a bit about today, and female customers through overlanding events and hands-on education. And a little background about Kim, Anastasia Kim, sorry. Before fully embracing her passion for the automotive world, she spent over 20 years in education, health, and fitness industries. She holds a degree in kinesiology and is a certified health and PE teacher. She is also a mother of five children. Check this out. Ages ranging from six to 18. So welcome to the show, Anastasia. Great to have you with us.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Doug. It is exciting. I'm got a lot of things in my brain. I just want to talk to you about.

Doug

You have a lot of stories.

SPEAKER_01

There are too many to be told in an hour, but we'll try.

Doug

Yeah, we'll have you back. And uh the same goes for every guest. If you want to come back and be a co-host sometime, interview a friend, a hut, a partner, if you will, spouse, we'd love to have you back sometime. Or just talk more about what you've been up to. So hopefully you'll take us up on that. But for now, you've been checking out the podcast. I did want to ask you what your favorite episode was. If you could tell us a little bit about it and why you enjoyed

Family Car Bonds And Women Learning

Doug

it. It's it's one of my favorites, by the way, as well.

SPEAKER_01

I I'm definitely a family girl, and I am incredibly close with my father. I have an older sister and then a brother, and then I'm the youngest. And my father has always loved his girls so much and taught us everything that they would teach my my brother. And I think the Riley and Dane show, the live one, something that really caught my attention and to be soft like a woman, kind of pulled out and tugged at my heartstrings, was just the fact that through cars, their family was not just bonding, but it was impressive when this 16-year-old young girl was going to car shows and starting to bring her tools and starting to figure things out. The facilitation of the relationship between the father and the daughter, and just almost building their own legacy of sharing information, but really just spending time together and teaching. And then how that has blossomed into her own passion and capability. To me, that is just a beautiful thing to witness because that is absolutely how I feel about my father.

Doug

No, it's a great, they're a great family and they get along so well. And you can see this fun back and forth. There's still the father-daughter piece. It's very, very tight. And there's a business there too. And I think the brother is involved as well as just some friends.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And I also think that women sometimes, just sometimes, I think it's gotten much better. And I I honestly wouldn't say I am like a huge feminist of any sort. I think men and women are absolutely beautiful on their own, and we both need each other in so many different ways. There are things that I don't want to do as a woman that I please ask my husband to do. So I am a very aware that women are completely capable in many ways. But sometimes there is an attitude of until maybe a woman exhibits interest, knowledge, or even a just an a curiosity that can even be naively ignorant, a little bit of yearning, then a lot of men are so helpful. I mean, it is incredible the guidance that they will give, the time that they will spend, the information that they will hand over. I have found that to be a great asset and tool in this industry, but it also with women will help each other, but their dynamic is completely different, women to women. And most men that I meet, especially in the off-roading world, would say that they absolutely love teaching women how to drive more than men because they listen. Right. Yeah, it's not as much ego-driven. And at the same time, as a woman learning, you have to also have the courage to ask questions that maybe are just completely common things that you wouldn't know, but a lot of other people would know. And that kind of courage a lot of women don't get to really indulge in because instead, maybe a little bit of knowing, just lack of confidence, is I'm gonna stay away from that because I don't have I'm not well versed enough. So I'm just not gonna touch that. I I want to know, but that's the cool part about the Ineos Grenadier community. Because it was a first generation car, everybody was learning, everybody had no idea what was going on. All of these, I mean, I have spent a terrible amount of hours on the forum, and the forum is like a traditional men's forum where it's like reply, reply, reply, reply, reply, reply, and it just keeps going and going. It's like just this long set of threads, and you have to dig and dig, and then two hours have passed by just to give one answer. It's it's sometimes people like make you feel stupid online because everybody's got an opinion, and that's okay too. You just go, okay, move on.

Doug

Nope. There there are people like that, and being anybody owns a specialty low, low volume car or a car they're looking to mod or whatever, as I have to say it at least once on the show, I feel like I'm paid for it, but I'm not. As a DeLorean owner, there are a lot of there, there are some Facebook groups where people can get kind of aggressive. Whether they feel it's a stupid question or what you're trying to do doesn't jive with what they think should be done. And it happens. Some some people get nasty. I just like, hey, thanks for your help. Or or I wait and ask somebody else directly.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and something that my parents especially raised me with and always taught me to do for the most part in a very genuine, altruistic manner, is to leave either neutral or a win-win situation. Otherwise, that's there's an editing system where you just don't entertain it. But there doesn't need to be any interaction where you leave bridges burned or being nasty. That just does nothing but irritate people and cause more long-term problems. So that's not something that I do all the time because I am not perfect, but I do strive for it.

Doug

Nothing wrong with that. Trying to do your best and know there's room for improvement.

SPEAKER_01

For the most part. But I think a lot of people think these days they do their best and they have no idea the potential they tap into is 10% of what they're really capable of. I was just speaking about this last night. My dreams and my imagination are far greater than any of the means that I have, and I still think everything is possible. So, and it's happened. So many times have I thought, or somebody said this is not realistic, or and then I'm just like, well, I'm gonna gotta figure out how to make this happen. It happens.

Doug

So well, it's those open-minded thinkers that make things happen versus it's e it's easy to say, nah, not possible. But that's what I try and teach my kids. Like if if you think you can't do it, you're really selling yourself short and not even giving yourself a chance.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And it is okay. I think being a teacher, especially in a physical and health education, failure is the only way to improve. Because if I am like, like I said, whether it's physical or whether I'm trying to figure something out health-wise and wellness-wise, it is always trial and error. And uh you cannot push limits and break boundaries unless you're failing. You have to fail. So it's more about the perfect effort. Are you putting in a perfect effort? Can you confidently say, hey, I did my best, but did you really put your best effort, your perfect effort? Maybe not. Or maybe I could have come out a different angle. Uh I think society these days is not as filled with humility, maybe sometimes as they could be.

Doug

Agreed. Agreed.

SPEAKER_01

And that comes from someone who can be very arrogant sometimes.

Doug

So I'm not trying to say Well, speaking of arrogant, and I'm not called referring to you, it might relate to our trivia question that I'm gonna jump into.

Grenadier Trivia Teaser And Mindset

Doug

And I know you'll I know you'll know the answer. Sure. I mean, I'm pretty sure you will. It it is about your passion. So I'm gonna say it here and we'll uh save the answer for the end, plant it in our brains here. So the Ineos Grenadier was built to be a rugged modern replacement for the original Land Rover Defender. But where did founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe first conceive of the idea for this no nonsense 4x4? And what was the very concept sketch drawn on? So you'll you'll know it, but we're gonna save it. Sounds

Land Cruiser First Car Adventures

Doug

good. Jump jumping in, tell us about your first car. We know it wasn't an Ineos because it wasn't around back then, but tell tell us about your first car.

SPEAKER_01

So my first car, hand me down, more like a you can borrow it when we say you can drive, was a fifth-generation white, the first time they came out with the bubble land cruiser style. And so the reason why my father started getting land cruisers in our family was because he was in the Middle East often for work, and all they drive out there in the sand dunes are land cruisers. And so he got to experience their capability. He came back to the US and ended up getting the first land cruiser, the white one, that I got to use every so often. And then it was also because we lived in the country, a lot of animals, and my mom was driving her Mercedes one day and ended up excuse me, driving on an exit to get off the highway, and a huge buck jumped on top of her hood and slid into the windshield and almost could have killed her. And so then my dad was like, Absolutely not, no more. You're gonna be high up, we're gonna put brush guards, steer guards, all everything. And that's where sort of the land cruiser started. So when I started using the white one, then my dad bought another fifth generation one in a different color, and that was my mom's car. And so he had outfitted the whole thing to make sure it was like a tank. And I ended up actually getting that car a little bit later, deeper into high school, and that ended up being my my personal actual car that they gave me to drive around. And it was so cool, man. It was like the adventure car of the century.

Doug

So now, did you do any overlanding in that car?

SPEAKER_01

Well, so I grew up on a lot of farmland, and we definitely got the land cruiser stock before we had like a creek and a lot of hills and valleys on some parts of our land, and we would take it and drive all over the land, but we wouldn't actually overland in it and sleep and kind of go to remote places. We always traveled flying or driving there otherwise and staying at hotels and things. The concept of that didn't really happen until a little bit later in life. But when you're younger, the way that we would do it is you would drive on the land, you set up a tent, just have your car there, and then just sleep in the tent.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

That's how you did it. And we'd have field parties. I remember the time that I was driving the white land cruiser, the first one, and I was coming back from one of my best friends' houses who was a boy who like loved the guy, but had such so much fun, was so excited, was driving down because these are all like gravel windy back roads. And the same creek bottom where we got the Land Cruiser stuck one time, it has a drop-off on the other side around a curve with and the curve lines the creek, and there's about a 10-15-foot drop into the creek. So I went into the curve too fast. And when I hit my brakes, rather than ABS tapping them or kind of like accelerating out of a curve rather than going into the curve with acceleration, I ended up sliding and sort of the back end coming out, and then went straight into a tree. And I'm pretty sure that tree pretty much saved my life because the tree was this big, and the land cruiser just kind of essentially went around the tree in the front, and it stopped me from dropping into the creek. So that was that was great. I mean, it was not great in the sense that I really I didn't total it, but I definitely took out the front corner of the car and little me, 16 years old, backing it out, and all I hear is like it coming off the tree and just crouching, and then coming home with half moon out of the front left corner out of the car.

Doug

And my dad is like, Oh baby, I'm so you're like C Dad, Land Rover, Rain.

SPEAKER_01

Sorry, Land Rover.

Doug

Land Cruiser.

SPEAKER_01

You did a good the second little fender bender, he wasn't as like, oh, and so he's like, What are you doing?

Doug

Everybody gets a first-time pass, I think, or they should.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. I definitely had a lot of safety in the Land Cruiser. It was just big, it sat up higher as a bigger car than most cars on the road at the time. And I remember a really bad accident I got into, and I was performing because I was a ballerina and I was raised with Vaganova Ballet, did a ton of performing and ballet schools and all this stuff. I was about to perform and do the Snow Queen for the Nutcracker. And on my way to rehearsal, I think I was about 17 in the blue Land Cruiser. There is a stop and it was a four-way intersection, and I was taking a left-hand turn and it was a yield. And so there was a dip on the other side of the road, and I didn't see a car coming. They were going really fast, but that didn't really matter because it was a yield, so I had to yield. And they came up over the crest of the hill, and I was turning at the same time, and so they smacked into the front other corner of this car, and that almost took out the entire front axle. So that was a big repair. I know that that was the time that my dad was like, it's not good. So had to go to court for that one, but no, no big issue. It was just it was an accident. So I was grateful that there wasn't any like consequence, but that was really scary. That was my first time going to court for something like that. So but if you're in court and the cop doesn't show up, leave then it's no no no pros.

Doug

Don't wait around.

SPEAKER_01

So local land cruiser, though.

Doug

And I got a third one.

SPEAKER_01

That's kind of a white one, and then my mom was a blue one. And then the third one I got was like around my 21st birthday when I was in college. My dad was so sweet because I had always had hand-me-down cars, and he decided to get me my own new car. And that was just like a crazy, holy moly moment. And he got me the generation six, and I got it in River Rock Green Micah.

Doug

Did it make it?

SPEAKER_01

It made it through college enough to the point where I was an adult and had my first kid. So it it lasted not just a long time, was very reliable, but definitely dented some floorboards, driving over land and just kind of seeing what it could do. I don't want to say too much. Maybe my parents know, but they know we had a couple of field parties.

Doug

So I get it. It it happens. The perfect vehicle for it. It it's funny, growing up the the original Wrangler, like I think it came out in 86, 87, like they drove horrible, but wow, they could just they could do anything. And you just reminded me of we had some party at a house I lived in, and the house was off in the woods, and I had this great idea to go drive the jeep through the woods. It did pretty well. I mean even the paint getting scratched really wasn't like a problem. It just took it. People thought it was hilarious. I probably shouldn't have been doing it, but no, no harm, no foul. It wasn't a big woods, but that's what I mean. There was no lake or or stream or anything that I had to avoid, but my husband's a jeeper, and like I love Jeeps.

SPEAKER_01

I really love jeeps. I'm just waiting to get like a side piece Jeep so that I can just tear through places because although I off-road and do a lot with the INIA, I cannot off-road the way that he can in his Jeep. I mean he's got 37s and a much bigger lift and has a lot more capabilities and has changed out his axles and everything like that. So we get to do a lot of fun things, but sometimes we have to take a little bit of separate paths since I have to be the one that's like, I'm on the bypass.

Getting The Grenadier And Going Social

Doug

So we also want to talk about how you got into Ineos because I love the story. Your parents are involved in it. Again, can you tell us about getting the Ineos and then how this women's Ineos Grenadier Club formed? And I know that's a big story, but take it away.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. It was a blessing. Started out as a phone call, and I had about two hours to decide on a car because they were standing over at the Ineos Grenadier RDS dealership in Pennsylvania. My brother, my sister, and myself, this doomsday car is what they called it. So it was what I would call a once-in-a-lifetime blessing that most everybody, like this is a very small percentage of people that get to experience something like that. And I said, Dad, no matter what, I need to have a hitch on it because I have a travel trailer and I have a farmette, so I have a trailer as well. I mean, I have hauled pigs in my gr my grenadier. So he knew I needed a very which is why I got the trial master version and all the difflocks on it and the hitch kit. But that's really what happened. I didn't earn the car. I am just an incredibly blessed daughter who got so lucky to be born into amazing parents that while they're living, want to share and the the they have the capability and the ability to do it now rather than when they're gone. So my sister and I, when we got these, we just I don't know what happened because my sister and I were like kind of polar opposites in ways. She is like so gorgeous and beautiful, very like I would she call I would say a little bougie. And she's just beautifully refined. We all grew up that way. We're my mom's Cajun, she's from Louisiana, etiquette and decorum. We had parties and entertaining all the time. I mean, it was like always like that growing up, just a lot of adrenaline junky stuff. So despite the fact that we're kind of different in that way, and that my sister has all the abilities to get down and dirty and do all those things, we ended up finding just like this beautiful connection to want to do more with the car. Cause I told her I said, like. Candice, I cannot she can afford the car. She is just an incredible, like vice president, blah blah blah blah blah and very successful in her own. And I said, I'm a school teacher. Like, I can't even afford like the property tax on this. I was like, what am I gonna do? And this is like when the car's brand new in 2024. And there were like very little even out on the road. So I was like, just started small, a little off-roading, a little like, what do people really do with these cars? It's like an open canvas. And then I don't know why or how, but I had been off of social media for like five, seven years or something like that.

Doug

Oh, that sounds wonderful.

SPEAKER_01

It was beautiful. It was absolutely beautiful. And then I got a hair in my booty, and I was just like, hey, this car is so fun. I'm just gonna start documenting sort of like this. I never really cared about cars as much. Maybe it was because I had access to them and was so blessed. I remember this one time, it was almost embarrassing. And I look back on it now as absolutely silly and unnecessary. But it hurt my feelings at the time because I was younger and probably just more affected. And it was my dad who loves cars. He picked me up one day in my neighborhood and at my own home. And he was driving one of his really nice cars. He had a couple of Ferraris and stuff like that. And a neighbor had come out after he dropped me back off because we went out to lunch, did a little shopping, just spent a father-daughter day together. And he was like, made a very snide comment about, oh, did he spoil you or something like that? Sometimes with things, I can't help the way that that person perceives it. But to me, I don't care about the car. I just want to hang out with my dad.

Doug

Sure, that's a connection you have.

SPEAKER_01

The most valuable thing is time with my parents, but it affected me. Like, it's not like I asked to be born to someone who decided to buy a Ferrari in their life and that I have to go out here and publicize it a lot. It's more about like how how incredibly blessed and how hard did my father work because he came to America. I mean, he actually came from quite a wealthy family in Korea, but he came to America refusing any help and started from scratch, literally in Hawaii, as a surf instructor. And so for him to live the American dream, never not die in the Korean War, first of all, survive that, build himself as an entrepreneur. And so you gotta kind of like turn those things into something else sometimes. Same thing with the Inios Grenadier. I am not embarrassed to say I did not buy this car. What I'm very excited and proud of is that I decided to do something with it. Yeah. So I wanted to become a value and worthy enough to understand how to work on the car to save money, but also to empower other women. And that's what my sister and I did. And that's how the women's club came to fruition. Once I started documenting all of this stuff just on Instagram, I really don't know how. But then companies were starting because it's a first-gen car and everybody's getting on the bandwagon to make accessories since it's an expensive car. Let's charge five times the amount of a Jeep part, but it's still the same exact part. And it's just fits the Inios. And I'm just like, they started calling me, they started offering whether it was equipment, podcasts, social media bartering, equipment bartering. That just started a roller coaster. Then I started getting invited and comp for events. And then at this point in time, now, and I'm telling you, there's a very young club. It's only a year old. This was 2025. Mike Reed from Grenadier Gathering in Moab, Voyagers Outdoor Limited. He and I called my sister and she was like, hey, let's do it. And I was like, You down? Because I won't do it if you don't do it. And I was like, it's too long of a drive by myself. I can't do that. Well, yes, I can. And yes, she could. And then our husbands came, and my husband's on his Jeep, and we brought a toddler and two of our other children. I mean, like, literally, Hewitt was four years old when we drove out for two and a half days straight to Moab. I think we served one night. And from there, that was the inception, the start. Mike Reed was with his genius, says, I really hope this inspires people to create their own clubs in their own communities. And I've done that my whole life. I as a teacher, I have run theater, dance clubs, blah, blah, blah. I know I've done philanthropy, I've done all these things. Why not this? And so Women's Inios Grenadier Club started. I've traveled all around the world, which gives me the brain to say, hey, this club is an international club, which means the invitation I just got from Dubai from a woman to go wheeling out there who has a grenadier. I want to do that. The lady in Italy who's driving the countryside, taking pictures with her grenadier, I want to go over there and bring some other grenadier women and do those things. Why can't we go to Hambok, France, where the entire facility is that builds them and tour the facility? Why can't we just have a weekend of cars and coffee where we get together or maybe take some backcountry roads in West Virginia together? It has been, especially for my sister and I, a place of wonder, of growth, of just excitement, but also like holy crap, this is serious. Like people, this industry is huge. People care a lot about it. And there's a lot of great people in it. And so we've built these wonderful friendships and relationships. Yes, some of it's built around business, but those people that are good people, they don't, you know, you don't stick around for two years. Now it's about two years of doing this and still have maintain these really incredible friendships where people check on you, see if you're going to this event and hey, do you need anything? So it it's now we're at the point where I'll be guest speaking at Detroit and holding my own seminar. My sister and I, through the women's club, are facilitating the Women's Expedition Clinic at the Grenadier Gathering East in Winrock. And I also created an event with a master instructor, Ben Wooten, called Grenadiers in Greenville, where it's a weekend workshop for about eight plus eight or nine grenadiers. And we're doing the whole weekend with off-road skills, recovery, safety, and just getting on trail. That's what it's culminated to. Why not?

What Makes The Grenadier Tough

Doug

Exactly. So, so a lot of people don't know about the Ineos Grenadier. Would you mind? I I first learned about it from Doug DeMiro on on YouTube when I first came out. And somebody in my neighbor neighborhood has one, happens to be a woman as well. I haven't I kept it. I keep walking by and I want to talk to her, and I walk by today. She wasn't out there, but I want to say, hey, about the club. I'm sure she does. If she doesn't, after I talked to her, you will, yay! She will indeed. So tell tell us about certainly the origins are Sir Radcliffe wanted to build something like the original Land Rover Defender, but can you tell us about the vehicle itself?

SPEAKER_01

Of course, the vehicle is a throwback to the way vehicles really should be made in terms of a utilitarian vehicle. It is a full ladder frame, it has solid axles front and back. You can get differential locks for the front and back as well, but it comes standard with a center diff. And it was meant to do work and off-road and be capable. I mean, the car itself is 6,000 pounds naked. My car now it's probably more close to about 7,500 pounds, depending upon who's in it and who's not and what equipment I have on it at the top. Especially since I took my whole front end out and took out the the in the front, I had a hitch as well and put in a winch system from GP Factor and their pull bar. So that added quite a bit of weight to it. But all the accessories, all of the items that you pack onto it, things like that. I mean, people are going wild with the rooftop tents. I mean $20,000 wild easily and cutting off the roof. Oh, yes. Oh, so they're cutting the roof. Hello cab. We are sawzawing, like just cutting the entire rectangular roof off.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

But the car itself is electronic as far as the front and rear lockers are concerned. Otherwise, it's manual, but you can also go into electronic manual shifting, which is incredible. And it's a BMW B-58 turbo engine. And so that engine is like a tried and true engine. So since it's been so dependable and so consistent, they kept all of that in shifting. You just tap it to left, you have your manual shifting. But the reason why that's so helpful is because if you're going down decline and you want to really control, especially if you're using some left and right braking, driving, and then on top of that, you just you the way the Ineos is, it's a little quirky, but you have to really kind of become intimate with the way it feels. So sooner or later, it took me some time, but sooner or later, I can now be like, something doesn't feel something is off, something's not engaged, something is still trying to release. When I'm going up, this is what I need to be prepared for. These are the steps to take it because it is a little quirky. From the beginning, since I have a 2024, there are quite a few computer glitches. Any new gen car, which is why you have to have a passion for it, quite honestly. You're gonna have problems.

Doug

You're an outlier for sure.

SPEAKER_01

The safari windows were leaking, the AC was leaking into the footwell. We had to deal with the recall on the buttons because the latch wouldn't engage on the door. So the door would swing open if you didn't shut it all the way, the little button wouldn't pop back out, which could be super, super dangerous. Don't get me wrong, but they they were wrong. There's recalls on cars all the time. And also when you get into what I would call a more boutique car at the time, you're getting into things that are more snickety. And that concept does not is not apparent to a lot of people when they're like, oh, this is a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing car that is cool. Well, it's also like a very capable car that is brand new and is probably gonna go through some growing pains, and it might cost you more money than the hefty price tag already.

Doug

And you're not buying a Mercedes. I mean, I was a somewhat early adopter on a Tesla Model 3, like I got one of the uh I really didn't have any problems with it, but I mean Tesla had to scale tremendously to make that besides building the car, then they have to have the service centers, then they have to have the educated people, then they have to have the repair centers that had so many growing pains, if you will. And then I I think unlike most cars from a Hyundai or pick take your pick, Mercedes, we uh just like my DeLorean forum, like your your forum you mentioned. You have to rely on others to try and figure out what's going on. And when we talked in the pre-show, we talked about how there they're I don't know, there were oh, this is a common problem because these people are having it's not just me.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. That's that can be comforting and also frustrating, yes, of course, because it needs to be addressed, and there's gonna be more coming. But the one thing I love about the Grenadier that Ratcliffe, I think, was pretty ingenious, was he kind of took all the different parts that he really liked. Like he took the Riccaro seats, Italian axles, I think they're Ferraro or what are they called? The their Italian axles. And then the one thing I do think that was a really difficult point that we've gotten past is that the drive shaft, when was even if you didn't lift your car, it was failing at times. But because the time period of the car having been out on the road coincided with people starting to modify the car and put bigger springs in it or lift kits. What ended up happening was they everybody thought it was a lift, changing the angle, of course, at the insertion of the prop shaft, blah, blah, blah. Well, what ended up really happening is some of them were still failing on their own. So I think there's two companies now that have put out, or maybe three heftier drive shafts with a better angle, especially if you have a lift on your truck. I waited and sat on iBack IBOx springs for a year before I put them in. And I did it in my front, like gravel, no garage with my husband. That was one of the sketchiest things. Family project, family project, pulling them out and then putting them in and using a crowbar and like three lifts and jack stands and just like not trying to sever a brake line, working around these things and having it enough at an angle so that it would release and so that we could slide one in, but still having to put compression on it. It it was crazy. But we got it done in like eight hours, which and there's a video. There is, there's a couple of documents. Yeah. So I had a social media account called Grenadier Trial Girl, and I lost like I I think I was up to around over 3,000 followers at the time. And so I had to start all over again. But I really believe in many ways God was saying you're spending too much time on this because I was such a like no tech person to my kids. Like, it's horrible for you. It's poisoning to have TV at home. This is why I wouldn't have internet or cable. And then I'm sitting here being a hypocrite with a double standard because this is exciting and fun, and I'm documenting these things. And then I was getting a lot of offers and opportunities, and then I had to start reading through them. So that happened. I think it was just a sign to say, hey, look, refocus, reprioritize. So now the club is just more grenadier lifestyle and like the the actual account, more grenadier lifestyle and the club, and then highlighting women every so often. But it's also about being clumsy with the car. And people, they look at the car. I mean, the other day someone was like, I love your Jeep. And I'm like, Oh, that's so sweet, but it's it's not a Jeep. It's actually an Ineos Grenadier. And she was like, Really? I own two Jeeps. And I was like, Oh, well, let me show you. So it's become a point where people can actually learn about it and it starts conversations in the community that you build with it is new people going, Whoa, what is this? And through just that conversation, I've probably helped Ineos by I don't know how many more Ineos cars. So not to mention, even my brother-in-law ended up getting one. So in my family, we have five grenadiers.

Doug

Wow. I'm sure it gets mistaken for a Range Rover, Land Rover.

SPEAKER_01

And only those Range Rovers and Land Rovers and Jeeps purposely park next to it.

Doug

I I bet, because they're they're curious.

SPEAKER_01

They love it. I think it's wonderful. But speaking of that lift and getting bigger tires and then going through all of that, I mean, there's just been so many things that people have gone through to get this car to where it's at now. And I think that INIO's creditier company, them pulling from all the different places and different parks to create this car was beautiful, but obviously it's got to figure itself out a little bit. But INIO's what I would call business model, when they started to try to get high volume dealerships to carry the car, they kind of were growing faster,

Growing Pains, Mods, And Community

SPEAKER_01

I think. And I'm gonna be very empathetic towards this because they were an energy, they're energy company. That's where he got the money to fuel this. No fun and colour. Yeah. It kind of turned, of course, it's a passion project, but it turned into something where I don't think they could keep up with the growth and stay engaged in the cult-like community that was investing in their product. And instead they were focused more on trying to get the car sold so that the company could survive and they just didn't have enough manpower or maybe even like experience to like the US people don't understand this. Like Americans will spend ridiculous amounts of money. Money, money, money. You could have like any Joe Schmo walking, and he could have two million dollars in his garage, and you wouldn't know the difference because they love to off-road, or they love muscle cars, or they love to do side-by-side off-roading and and doing buggy roading, any kind of awesome, anything on wheels, let's go. This American car culture of now overlanding and being outdoors. And so those people spend tons of money. I mean, vans are like more expensive, sprinter vans are more expensive than people's homes. So the industry here for a car like the Ineos that you can off-road and overland in is huge. And I don't think they realize that, but now they do. I think it's coming back full circle, and I think they're really seeing it because numbers don't lie. US is their big sell of the Ineos Grenadier, the UK, least.

Doug

What's the problem? Do you know what the production numbers have have been like? Just curious.

SPEAKER_01

The only thing I the most recent stat I read was like last year, they only sold like 750 of them in the UK, which is really sad. And I know that when I first bought the car after about six months to a year, there were only 25,000, 25,000 of them on the road in the world. But now it's a much higher number, which is kind of crazy because this might have its own life and death. And I'm just saying, as a person who has not the company itself, I'm talking about it's gonna get saturated if it's successful. I mean, they're selling them at Costco now. They have putting them on the rental fleets that I think hurts carry some, which is awesome for them, like I said, in volume, but the artistic sort of of the car.

Doug

It's it's funny you say the like the Model 3 saved Tesla, but but I loved having one of the first ones. I loved the exclusivity, and now Model Y, you see, everywhere. I I wouldn't touch one just because everybody has it.

SPEAKER_01

Those things scare the living daylights out of me because not too long ago my children were like, I was in the parking lot and I noticed a car moving and no one was in it.

SPEAKER_02

Oh.

SPEAKER_01

But I grabbed my kids. Smart summoned. I'm grabbing my kids, and I'm like, get the hell out of the way. Like I'm in mom emergency mode. I'm gonna save them from a moving car. Somebody is doing something nefarious, and I need to get the heck out of there and escape. Mom, mom, mom, mom, stop. It's okay. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's okay. No one's driving my car. It's got a mind of its own, it's gonna kill someone.

Doug

And I did fine, and it just enabled me to deal with the anxiety about traffic goes away.

SPEAKER_01

Where are you at about electric vehicles versus the good old fossil fuels?

Doug

Well, I have two fossil fuel vehicles. One was the DeLorean, the other one is my 1990 Nissan 300ZX, which is about five.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's a great car.

Doug

It needs to be painted as my high school dream car.

SPEAKER_01

Cool.

Doug

And both of those are stick shifts, and then I I have a Tesla as my daily driver. And uh I just no no maintenance. I I don't like dealing with dealers. I've had very few problems with with the car, really. And I don't have to deal with oil changes. I it just allows me to focus on my fossil burning vehicles, which you know are just for fun and I don't drive them very much.

SPEAKER_01

But all right, so you got the balance.

Doug

They it if there was self-driving as good as Tesla's, in my opinion, in a non or another non-Tesla, I would be interested, but I haven't seen one yet. And so to me, it dealing with the headaches and some controversy and having a charge, like it is worth it because I'm planning to actually drive down to Pensacola to see my best friend the summer. And I've never driven that far. That's like okay, that's like 15 hours in a regular car, so it's gonna take me a little bit longer with stops. But but I have no problem sitting in it.

SPEAKER_01

I I mean honestly, it could be well like it like an RV, like we're we're about to go to Glacier in Montana. Like an RV where you have to find your stops so that you can do everything that you need to do and map it all out. You just it's the same thing you probably have to do with charging up.

Doug

The car does it for you. Right.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, excuse me, it's so intelligent, it probably knows everywhere.

Doug

It's well, it's not the best at navigation, it's the best at navigating to where it needs to go, but not maybe the best ways to avoid traffic.

SPEAKER_02

So I got you.

Doug

And I I'll tell this quick joke. So I use Waze a lot, which is not available in the car and it doesn't have Apple CarPlay, so it's kind of a pain. One day I was driving and it's telling me to go the other way. And the sound, the voice of Waze and the voice of the Tesla is so similar, the default ones. Oh no. I had both going at the same time and didn't realize, and it was one was telling me go one way, one was telling me the other, and it took me a little bit to figure out, and then I just oh my god, what did I do? It was that's hilarious. It was funny.

SPEAKER_01

So like things poo-poo happens.

Doug

Yeah, it was funny. It was a funny story. It it couldn't just be me. Speaking of which, dream cars.

Overlanding Trips And Tread Lightly

Doug

What would be a dream car? Obviously, you own one of them.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and what that The car that I own now as an INEO is Grenadier. I wouldn't say that's my dream. Like if I could have any car I wanted, it would be that. But it would be if that, if if the question was, if you wanted a car you could do anything with, go anywhere, it would be the Grenadier. As far as like a dream car, either money's no object or like having five children that I have to fit in seats with no object. I have two. One would be the like a CUDA from back in the 70s. And then also I really loved the first Audi convertible R8 that came out. That would be like one of the only high-end sort of luxury cars that I would really like. I like I said, I've been around a lot of cars growing up. So maybe just me being a little desensitized to like cool cars and expensive cars and things like that. I wasn't as maybe I just wasn't as focused on those kinds of things. And I also felt like it doesn't determine like what kind of person you are. And but I mean it's just it's people have choices and they get to do whatever some people spend it on charity, some people spend it on homes, travel, whatever floats your boat.

Doug

You can't take it with you.

SPEAKER_01

No, no. And and I'm the kind of mother, especially with my children and my husband, we've taken them on about 85. This will be around 86 trips in the past 11 years.

SPEAKER_02

Experiential.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and that's I may not, as a teacher, make a ton of money, but I'm smart about being frugal in order to be able to travel with my children. And that's been the most important thing. But now that they're getting older, I've kind of gotten to a point where, like, my husband and I, we talk about it. I generally do at least one overlanding trip a year by myself with a group of people and a guide, Mountain State Overland, that I trust, I know, and they're way more experienced and educated than me if stuff hits the fan. So doing that actually is giving me a lot more knowledge and confidence to be like, I want to be the guide one day to do this sort of thing and pick a cool route and stay at different campgrounds and bring a batch of women and get into a couple of precarious situations. Last one I went on, there was a path that we were in water all the time. And this is like west, south to north, West Virginia. And I mean, I I don't know how many cross water crossings, and it was a creek and river, and there was one portion where the actual path was so rudded, so deeply rudded. The Jay said he went first and it is Tacoma, Tacoma. I think he has Tacoma. And I mean, just his whole truck just went sideways and just leaned and he got stuck. Like first one. So you're like, okay, we have all these different cars and we can't let that happen every single time. It's gonna become nighttime by the time we get everybody out of here. The ruts were just too messed up. A lot of the those buggies that they use a lot of the time, the bigger ones, they really something that I wish that people understood more was tread lightly and preservation, because when you are just sitting there spinning your tires and just like going balls to the wall, you can really just damage it, but also ruin it for everybody else. So preserving some of those pathways, and you'll you can get into enough fun trouble if you want, but like at least, like I said, tread, tread lightly, be slightly conservative about messing up the pathways. And anyways, we had to pivot, and there was an open area on the embankment that like literally here, straight down into the river. And so that's what we did, and it was so cool. Nose to the ground down the side of the embankment. And uh, thank goodness I had been in Moab first to do nose to the sky, nose to the ground, times off camber to the point where I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna roll. It's gonna have no, you're not gonna roll. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna roll. The car is literally at a 30-degree angle sideways. Like, no, you'll be fine. It's like it's it's sticky rock. Like you just stick to it like Velcro. Sticky rock. Sticky rock. But anyways, it's just cool, great experiences like that.

Doug

Yeah, you're making me think about that Jeep. But before before I go down that road again, so to speak, I wanted to circle back to our trivia question.

Trivia Answer, Events, And Closing

Doug

So back to the question. The Ineos Grenadier was built to be rugged, modern replacement for the original Land Rover Defender. Where did I's founder, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, first conceive of the idea for this no-nonsense 4x4? And what was the very first concept sketch drawn on? So East Asia?

SPEAKER_01

That's why it's called the Grenadier.

Doug

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Because it happened, a little place, little bar pub in the UK called the Grenadier. And he sat at a table, drew it out, and I think it's actually on a piece of paper or a napkin, and it's it's framed up on the wall. So now people who are in the Ineos or bought it or gotten a quartermaster, because a quartermaster is the truck version. And the Grenadier has like sort of like a more uh luxury version to it called the Field Master. My sister has the Field Master, and it's got different alloy wheels that are very beautiful and just some lot more I would say luxury touches to it. But the little pub over there, people visit now and frequent. And I mean, you can just look it up on any kind of social media, all they went to the Grenadier, and you see the car parked out in the front. I think it's just such a sweet little story because just like I'm telling you my story, he had a beautiful story and had a dream, and that's all it was, and that's all you need. Then you have to obviously put the hard work now, which I am so grateful for. But I mean, I told you this, I have financed this club by myself, tooth and nail, and getting sponsorships and having people believe in the club. And I am so grateful. I mean, some companies have been so incredibly generous to provide sponsorship for the club, but otherwise, I've spent tons of my own money just to be able to be present at events, keep things like mailings or websites or just the cost, the overhead. And then in addition to that, if you're a woman and you own a grenadier, my thought is you're you're a member of the club. You're exclusive enough because you have a you own a grenadier or quartermaster. And at this point in time, the club has grown. I'm getting literally an email about once or twice a week for the past, I don't know how many months now, because they're selling them more, but also because I think people are realizing and women are realizing that is the whole essence of why I wanted to start the club. This is liability, this is this. I have to turn it into an LLC. And I probably will have to start charging a membership fee if I want to keep it exclusive, like elite, and to have these opportunities where I can actually say, hey, in Dubai, we were invited by this Ineos Grenadier owner. This is the accommodations. Here's the ticket price, who wants to go? We cap it off at five people. And the Ineos Grenadier over there is gonna let us rent the Grenadiers while we're out there. This is where my brain is. So, in order to do that, I'm going through some growing pains now, have some meetings set up, but like the this year's events are already full and they're already bought out, except for women's clinic. We have some spots left at Wind Rock for the women's clinic, and we have a cap of 10 vehicles.

Doug

Okay. When is women's clinic?

SPEAKER_01

The women's expedition clinic is at Wind Rock, Tennessee, at the Grenadier Gathering East, and that is October 8th through 11th of 2026.

Doug

Okay. Great. Everybody heard that. So as we gently steer the podcast into the off-ramp, I want to thank you for your passion, the stories. I could just keep going on and on.

SPEAKER_01

I know we could.

Doug

And we'll have to have you back. And hopefully, we don't live too far from each other. Hopefully, we can figure out how to meet up at a Carson Coffee someday soon.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

Doug

Maybe I just have to be in town.

SPEAKER_01

I would love to meet up at Katie's. I mean, I I go there all the time, at the old rogue and everything like that.

Doug

Well, that's super early on Saturdays.

SPEAKER_01

Speaking of like Passion Project, I love your YouTube channel and that you do this just because you love it. People like that just it's not necessarily just super impressive. That's not really how I feel. It's just more like, oh, more good people in this world doing things because they love it.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01

That's just something that's so beautiful and valuable. So I thank you. And I hope we do touch base again. I mean, there are just some funny, crazy things that happen off-road. And this car has brought so many people together in different communities. I mean, you have clubs out west now, you have them in the south, you have northeast, we have all these different Facebook groups, but somehow, somehow, the biggest gathering is the one I told you about a Grenadier Gathering West in Moab by Mike Reed and Lisa Reed over there with Ineos Events US. And now they've split it up so that they can also be attentive towards the East Coast because not everybody can drive there and take three days to come out all the way to Moab. Absolutely loved it. Totally ran on adrenaline the whole time. But now that they have done that and it's so much more accessible for Northeast all the way down to Florida. I mean, we have people coming from Australia for this gathering. The last gathering that they had, oh my gosh, I 160 cars. I I gotta double check that number. It was kind of funny because Mike Reed, who's like an extremely busy, busy person, in the middle of it, because I couldn't go this year with school, he texts me in the middle of it and tells me the amount of cars that made it there. And I was just like, this is too cool. What a celebration.

Doug

So to be missed.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And let's go on a ride or take you on trail with it.

Doug

You can uh I'm I'm down with that. So we'll put it in the show notes, but where can people find you online?

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So my G Instagram account is Women Women's Ineos Grenadier Club. Okay. And the website is women's Ineos Grenadier Club.com.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, perfect.

SPEAKER_01

And if you want to find me on Facebook, we have the Women's Ineos Grenadier Facebook page worldwide on there. And then Anastasia Kim Carpenter just look that up, friend me, and we can talk. One thing I will say about kind of connecting with people is all everybody wants to do is sit around a campfire at the end of the night and just tell stories and have fun. But that is that is where it is at. I am telling you, that's where it's at. Expos, conventions, all of that stuff. It's that small group of people that love being out in nature, that are sitting around a campfire, sharing a meal, having a drink, and deciding like we're gonna share all of our life stories and crazy things that happen. That's that's just too cool to me. I just really cherish that.

Doug

That sounds like that. If I can make it, that'll be the best time to show up towards the end for that evening event. Not that I wouldn't want to come otherwise, but you're so close. So you have just heard the high reving low mileage late model heard round the world authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. If you or someone has a great car story to share about their first cars, please drop us a line at stories at carslove.com or via social media. And the easiest way to find us our email, all our media, and our new app for the podcast is our LinkTree, L-I-N-K-T-P-E slash carslove. And I want to leave you with this following final thought. Telling car stories is contagious. We talked about that today. Just go ahead and ask your friends, your neighbors, your family members about their cool car, their first cool car, their favorite car, and watch for their reaction. I guarantee they will smile. Next time.

Head Shot

Doug

Co-host