Every day as I drove from my house to my workplace, I’d pop open my glovebox and try it on my pinky finger. I watched as the sun glistened off its beautifully cut faces, flashing beams of light around the car’s cabin as I sat there in traffic. “Was it going to fit?” I wondered. “Is she going to like it? Does she even have any idea it exists?” I kept contemplating different ways to ask her. We were going on a cruise with her family soon; maybe then? Or perhaps I could do it at her favorite botanical garden we frequent. Month after month passed by, and I grew more and more impatient; ultimately I realized that if I was going to do it, it had to be in the way I’d dreamed of. We would have to head to the off-road holy land.
Moab, Utah is more than just a tourist town to me. There’s something almost spiritual about it; the moments I’ve spent there have been the best of my life, including time as an engineer at Chrysler, time as a journalist who drove incredibly dilapidated Jeeps all the way from Michigan, and time with my girlfriend, whom we’re calling “Elise” on this corner of the internet even though it’s not her real name.
But beyond just Moab’s special meaning to me and to my then-one-year-seven-month relationship, Moab features some of the most proposal-worthy sites on earth, with one in particular having grabbed hold of my imagination years ago — my favorite off-road trail, Seven Mile Rim.
The image above is where it was to happen, right on an outcropping just off the epic off-road trail, which rides along what must be at least a 1000 foot cliff ledge. That particular outcropping, that particular trail, that particular part of America — it is a place like no other.
But how was I going to get us both to Moab in a way that didn’t tip my hand? “Hey let’s go to Moab” when you’re (possibly) expecting a proposal is a bit obvious. “Hmm, OK here’s what I’ll do,” I thought, “I’ll schedule an off-road work trip in my Jeep Wrangler YJ, since I need to shoot the XPEL video (see below) anyway. I’ll have Elise help me shoot video and photos. Then I’ll schedule another work trip the following weekend, though this time in Moab.”
I figured the first work trip would help her understand how useful another person is when creating video content so that when I asked her to go to Moab the following week to help me evaluate a vehicle, she’d assume she’d just be helping me for work. She’d know the drill.
And what vehicle would we be evaluating together? It’d have to be something special. Something memorable. Something Elise would really like. I knew the perfect car.
I had driven a diesel version of the Ineos Grenadier almost exactly a year prior in Germany. It was, as I called it in the headline of my review, “almost the perfect off-roader.” It was the short overhangs, the plentiful ground clearance, the locking diffs, and that beautifully torquey BMW diesel engine that outweighed my concerns about the huge wheel base and the vehicle’s top-heaviness. The Grenadier was just phenomenal.
Sadly, the U.S. market doesn’t get that diesel, and I was worried that the 3.0-liter BMW turbocharged gasoline inline-six would struggle to propel the nearly 6,000-pound Grenadier off-road due to its 75-ish lb-ft deficit. So this trip to Moab would give me a chance to experience whether my concerns were founded — or at least, that was my justification for the trip. In reality, I just wanted a reason to go to Moab so I could propose to the kindest, most thoughtful, most gorgeous woman I’ve ever known.
The journey is a 750 mile, 11-hour cruise through some of the most arid parts of the American southwest, but before we got there we had to get out of LA, and given all the traffic near Pasadena, we chose to take one of the greatest driving roads in the world instead: Angeles Crest.
I was quite concerned about the Grenadier on these twisty roads, given how top heavy it is (with the enormous amount of headroom, I couldn’t help but wonder if that roof could be a bit lower) and given its old-school body-on-frame, dual solid-axle chassis design. But actually, the Grenadier impressed me in the turns. It held its line better than you’d expect — certainly better than any old Jeep that I’ve driven — and its tightly bolstered seats that would be uncomfortable if I gained 50 pounds were nice and supportive through those sweepers. The straight-six motor pulled the heavy SUV out of the turns with confidence, and actually felt fairly lively, even if it took a second for the turbo to spool before the power hit.
To be sure, my expectations were quite low, but the Grenadier exceeded them on Angeles Crest. Once we were through the canyons we entered a world of cacti, red rocks, and a whole lot of extremely short bushes in beige dirt.
We watched it all pass by through the Grenadier’s flat, boxy windshield that, though not ideal for aerodynamics, didn’t stop Elise from putting her pedal to the metal, cruising along at over 80 mph.
This was, of course, detrimental to fuel economy, and though Elise doesn’t know it, I — being rather cheap — navigated her to a low-price gas station in Las Vegas despite the computer telling us we were getting really, really close to running out of fuel. “It’ll be fine!” I assured her, having done the fuel economy math in my head. “The gas station is only 20 miles ahead, and they always tell you it’s empty well before it actually is.”
We arrived at the gas station, where the nozzle kept pumping and pumping and pumping until 23.349 gallons flowed into the vehicle’s 23.7 gallon tank. “Damn!” I thought to myself, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow. “How could it use that much fuel?”
Well, the aerodynamics of a brick plus a nearly 6,000 pound curb weight, loads of ground clearance, a full-time four-wheel drive system, and all-terrain tires definitely don’t help; the Grenadier scored about 14 MPG. Yikes!
Gripping the thick steering wheel that felt only somewhat connected to the front wheels (the steering on this is way, way worse — it doesn’t self-center properly — than it should be, even for a solid front axle vehicle, though I got used to it), we drove the surprisingly comfortable Ineos into the night and ended up getting some shuteye in a hotel in St. George, Utah. After a little morning walk and a breakfast at a rather hipster (but cool) vegan restaurant, we hit the road again and arrived in Moab in the late afternoon.
Our first stop in the fabled town was, of course, the gas station:
Having topped off, we did a quick jaunt on my favorite light off-road trail: Fins & Things.
The Grenadier just walked over that trail like it was nothing.
I jammed the rather wonky transfer case shifter into low range, and paid special attention to how well the machine crawled, because I wasn’t sure about that BMW gasoline engine designed to go under the hood of sports sedans.
Right away, I could tell: This BMW engine that wasn’t initially designed for hard off-road use is actually not bad! I only had a little bit of time to test it out given that the trail was rather short and mild, though things seemed promising for that motor.
On the other end of the spectrum, issues I recall from my drive in the diesel Grenadier in Germany remained. The overhead “command center” is awesome, but those lockers don’t engage quickly enough:
Also, I’d love to see a sway bar disconnect, as suspension articulation was only “decent.” Plus, the vehicle could use a front-facing camera. As for the rear-facing camera: It’s really a surprisingly bad quality unit:
After a short nighttime off-road trek, Elise and I grabbed dinner and turned in for the night in a little condo that my friend Tommy from TFL Car let me use for a few nights.
“We’re getting up early to see the sunrise,” I told my partner, before quickly trying to justify it so nothing seemed too obvious: “We’re only here for two nights, so we need to maximize the experience.”
We set our alarms for 4:30 AM, and I grew excited for the following morning when I could finally propose to Elise. The plan was to drive to Seven Mile Rim, find that outcropping, set up a blanket along with our breakfast-filled cooler, and then we’d eat and I’d propose. Or I’d propose and then we’d eat. I’m not entirely sure I’d settled on an order. In any case, we got up bright and early, hopped into the Grenadier, then headed out of town towards my favorite off-road trial on earth.
In pitch darkness, I drove the Ineos northwest along the 191 highway. I struggled to find my favorite trail despite having been there so many times before; at night, and with pressure mounting, I kept passing it up over and over until I finally figured it out. We were running late; the sun was coming.
As I hammered down the pedal and watched to my surprise as the 282 horsepower inline six motivated that big three-ton beast with vigor down the dark, dirt trail, Elise pointed out that there was someone ahead.
“What?” I replied. “Why? It’s like 5 o’clock!”
Indeed, in the pitch dark trail in the middle of nowhere stood a small woman with a clipboard. I was baffled. As I drove closer I noticed a huge rock wall illuminated by what must have been a 10,000 lumen spotlight. “What the?” I wondered.
I pulled up to the woman standing all by herself in the middle of nowhere with a clipboard next to a Chevy Tahoe. “Hi!” she said with a smile. “So, we’re filming here, so the trail is closed for now.”
My heart sank. I then turned around and started driving as quickly as I could to try to find another beautiful overlook.
The images you see above are not the sunrise from Seven Mile Rim, but from a nearby trail called Gemini Bridges. It was nice enough, but it wasn’t where I wanted to propose.
I was bummed. I had planned all this out, and now my dream proposal was being thwarted by Kevin Costner! (Yes, it turned out that shoot was from Costner’s movie series “Horizons”).
“So… what do you want to do today?” I asked Elise, a bit down. “Um, I’d love to go to Canyonlands National Park!” she said with the bubbly, fun demeanor she carries through life. Elise loves national parks (she gets a “passport” stamp/cancellation at each one), and so do I, so this seemed like a solid idea.
On the way there, we did a bit of off-roading, and put the Grenadier’s prodigious off-road capabilities to more of a test than we had the night before. Just listen to Elise say “You’re live” as she shoots what she thought was an official video review of the Ineos Grenadier, but which was really just an excuse for me to ask her to marry me in a very specific way that had now been thwarted by the bright lights of Hollywood:
It was here during this off-road trek at about 5:45 in the morning that I found myself quite amazed by the Grenadier: That turbocharged inline-six meant to power sedans and roadgoing SUVs down the autobahn worked perfectly as an off-road motor. Like, perfectly. Its torque combined with the 2.5:1 transfer case low-range ratio, the 4.10 axle ratio, and the 5.25:1 first gear ratio to — along with the beautifully tuned pedal response — led to a rock crawling experience that was just downright easy and totally controllable.
That BMW straight six motor may not have originally been developed as a hard-core off-road motor, but my god does it feel like one in every way. Especially when hooked up to that drivetrain; I didn’t miss the diesel at all, and that’s an extremely difficult thing to get an off-road diehard like me to say.
The suspension flowed beautifully over the rocks in a way only a dual solid-axle vehicle can, though I maintain that the vehicle deserves a sway bar disconnect to get the most out of that suspension architecture.
The excellent 36-degree approach and departure angles and the rock-solid 10.4-inch ground clearance don’t tell the full story, because just ahead of the rear bumper and just behind the front bumper — clear from the departure and breakover angles — are fairly low-hanging skid plates. Obviously, by “low hanging” I mean at least 10.4-inches off the ground, but I’d much rather have everything that’s hanging anywhere near that 10.4-inch ground plane between the axles, and even then I’d prefer it to be closer to the axles instead of at the center of the wheelbase.
As you can see in the images above, Ineos did a great job keeping the center of that wheelbase clear of low-hanging “rock bait,” though the lower-hanging skidplates behind the rear axle and ahead of the front axle did get a tap from a rock here and there:
It wasn’t a big deal, and I consider the Grenadier’s off-road geometry to be excellent. Yes, the wheelbase is a bit long, the roof is a bit tall, overall dimensions are a bit large, and there are those low-hanging skidplates that I just mentioned, but overall the geometry is great when put against other off-road competitors.
Practically what that meant is that I could just point the Grenadier at pretty much any grade and just watch in awe as it climbed it almost effortlessly, with an occasional tire lift due to the suspension’s articulation limitation being the only reason why I include the qualifier “almost.”
[Shakes head, snaps out of it]. Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a review; it’s a story of how I got engaged. So let’s get back to that. Let’s see…where were we… Aha! Yes, we were on our way to Canyonlands National park, and I was getting a bit anxious. After the Kevin Costner fiasco I could have said “maybe we can try again tomorrow?” but for reasons that I can’t remember now that just didn’t work for our schedule, so I decided I was asking Elise today. This couldn’t wait any longer. I just wanted this over with!
We drove into the park, and Elise navigated us down the Shafer Switchbacks, one of the most stunning roads in the U.S. It’s so stunning, in fact, that I’ll let the National Park Service break it down since I don’t have the words:
The Shafer Trail at the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park is an iconic road that descends 1,500 feet (457 m) through a colorful, massive sandstone cliff. Its function has changed through the years; from a route made by Native Americans to access resources on the mesa top, to a trail for sheep herders moving flocks to better foraging in winter time, and then a road for trucks moving loads of uranium from the backcountry to market. Today, the Shafer Trail is a challenging, unpaved backcountry road for recreational users seeking the experience of a lifetime.
Here’s the NPS’ image, which I think shows the sheer scale of it all:
Shafer continues well after the 1,500 foot descent, taking us along gorgeous ledges, showing us beautiful buttes and mesas and the dirty Colorado River snaking its way through it all.
The trail took us to marvelous overlooks, with each featuring a small trail ending at a gorgeous look over the Colorado River. Here’s a look at the first one we stopped by:
That’s the look of a stressed man wondering if this is the spot… “Hey maybe we come back here on the way back” I remember suggesting, after having forgotten my camera in the car. “Uh, why?” she asked.
“You know what, never mind!” I panicked and we moved on.
When we’d arrived at that overlook, I’d noticed that someone had parked an old Land Rover, whose successor — the Defender — was the inspiration for the Ineos Grenadier. After taking the photo with Elise at the overlook, I saw that the folks who’d driven the Land Rover were standing around the Ineos… waiting.
They must have waited for between five and 10 minutes until I arrived, and they were beyond excited because they had no clue what this vehicle was; all they knew was that it looked incredible.
You can see me in the photos giving a full tour of the Grenadier. As a diehard off-road enthusiast and engineer, you can imagine how much fun this was for me.
We even got down on the ground to discuss the chassis!:
This situation was just a microcosm of what became clear is the vehicle’s single most egregious problem: Marketing. No matter where I stopped the Grenadier, everyone stopped, stared, and asked me what the heck it was. Even the owner of this Land Rover Defender 110 (whom we met later on after our trip to Canyonlands) couldn’t stop asking me questions about this mysterious machine:
Folks didn’t just like it, they instantly loved it, and yet that had no clue what the heck it was. If I were Ineos I would pour every penny I had into marketing. The product is there; now it’s time to get the brand name into some heads. It was very clear to me that Ineos is way, way behind on that front.
After the extremely long and nerdy discussion about one of the greatest off-road vehicles currently in production, I got my head back into the game and recalled the mission. I hopped behind the wheel and continued down the trail to the next overlook called the Gooseneck Overlook, which you would be able to read if the phone hadn’t decided to focus on the Grenadier’s bug-splattered windshield (it is the most bug-prone windshield I’ve ever seen):
We looked at the Colorado River and I couldn’t help but notice the fascinating rock formations off in the distance. “Want to go on a hike?” I asked Elise. “Uh, where? Just on those rocks?” she replied.
There wasn’t a “trail,” per se, but the rocks on which we stood seemed to stretch on like a giant slab of concrete well off into the distance. A small, thin sliver lined what must have been a 500 foot cliff down to the river valley below. (You can see the sliver going down and to the right in the middle of the image below).
We hopped from rock to rock until we got towards the end, and that’s when I saw it. This wasn’t Seven Mile Rim at sunrise, but it was it. I knew it immediately.
“Hey, I’m gonna set this tripod up and we can take a quick photo here with the river valley below,” I told Elise. And I’ll shoot a little footage for the article here, too. I pretended to shoot B-Roll as if I were still focusing on this Ineos Grenadier review, but really I was trying to justify documenting the moment.
With the tripod set up, I called Elise to join me on the rocky ledge. She walked out, then started to shorten her strides, then started to stiffen up, and eventually, just before she got to the spot, she said “I’m not going out there.”
“Sonuva!” I thought to myself, marginally frustrated with the situation.
I was so close. So, so close. Like, 15 feet and we’re there. I’d been trying this damn ring on every day on my commute to work, dreaming about how this was going to happen, and I’d already been screwed over by Bull Durham.
“Just 15 feet,” I encouraged Elise, trying to hide my impatience. “Trust me, it’ll be fine. I’ll help you.” She hesitated.
“OK! Fine!” she eventually agreed with much trepidation; I helped her get onto the very edge of that ledge. That’s when, from my GoPro case, I produced an extremely old piece of highly pressurized pure carbon on a gold band, got on a knee, and asked Elise if she’d do me the honor of spending life with me.
She said yes! And then shortly thereafter told us to get the heck off of this precarious rock.
Fair enough!
The time just after I asked Elise to marry me was among the most tranquil in my life. The moment had built up after so many months, and you could argue after years and years of dreaming what it’d be like. By the time it was over, I was tremendously relieved, and above that, overwhelmed with indescribable joy.
We departed back for Moab, driving along a gorgeous ridge, ascending the Shafer Switchbacks and past some gigantic bright-blue potash ponds:
We even spotted some ancient petroglyphs on the way back into town:
I’d made a reservation at Moab’s most famous fine-dining spots, Sunset Grill, so when we arrived in town Elise freaked out about how her nails weren’t done and she didn’t have a nice dress and on and on. It was all just so fun and exciting.
She found a great safari-ish looking dress in town, and we took Sunset Grill’s shuttle from our TFL condo to the restaurant so we could celebrate with champagne. Once there, the waiter took our orders and served us drinks, eventually noticing that Elise was wearing a ring.
Hesitant, he asked: “So… she.” I interrupted: “She said yes!” Apparently the restaurant had thought I’d propose there, so upon hearing the good news, the waiter turned around and yelled “She said yes!”
All the other patrons at their tables clapped. It was a great moment.
Moab, Utah was already a spiritual place for me as a diehard off-road enthusiast. Now its place in my heart has been solidified. Ditto for my love of the Ineos Grenadier, a vehicle that Elise says she’d like us to buy someday. I’m not sure how much the love-goggles affected our assessment of the machine, but I loved the diesel model when I drove it a year prior, and the gas model was easily as good, if not better.
Sure, the SUV needs heated seats given its base price, the windshield wipers are too easy to accidentally activate, the steering feel is atrocious, the vehicle can sometimes be hard to keep straight, the visors need mirrors, 14 MPG is awful, and I could go on and on. Some of these compromises aren’t necessary (including the steering), and some are a byproduct of building an authentic 4×4. None of them detract from the fact that the Ineos Grenadier is an off-road masterpiece.
I guess this did sort of become an Ineos Grenadier review after all, but it’s way, way more than that.
There’s not a moment that goes by when I’m not grateful for what I have in this life. I run an amazing car website, I get to drive and own cool cars, and I’ve found a person who likes me so much she’s agreed to commit the rest of her life to us. This would be approximately where my mom, upon reading this, would remind me that Elise, too, is quite lucky, and while I’m sure that’s true in a way, of the two of us she’s the one who has to overlook things like this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
And especially this:
So yeah, it’s pretty clear to me who the luckier one is here.
Congratulations DT and Elise! Very happy for you both and looking forward to DT’s “I need to finally finish my overlanding zj project so I can take my new bride on the adventure of a lifetime and we leave in 2 days” article.
I have never been so happy for two people I have never met. Congratulations!!!
Oh, and I think I need an Ineos… and I’m not even an off-roader.
You put some serious work into making it happen the way you had imagined and it was worth every minute! Congratulations to you and Esprit! ????
Outstanding writeup…Congratulations!!!
Just throwing this out there, but vehicles are totally acceptable anniversary gifts. (For their 25th anniversary, Dad gave Mom a new Wrangler…she’s still driving it.)
Congratulations David on your successful proposal. Elise if you are being held against your will blink twice. LOL. I assume this is where we share our stories? So Tallahassee FL FSU I am preparing to propose to my 1st and only true love. Having been kicked out of our favorite Asian Restaurant I approach our new go to place. I give them the ring, have them place it in a fortune cookie and plan to dine that night our regular night. My beloved says can’t make it dad’s birthday. I say OK set date for tomorrow call the restaurant hope it doesn’t get lost or stolen. Sleepless night call the love of my life and confirm. No she says we didn’t go out so asked if she can cancel again. Freaking out say no say you cancelled once not again. I mean 10k in 1990 was big money. She gets pissed family reschedules. I picked her up pissed off she doesn’t say a word to me during dinner but I’m okay because when she gets the ring right? Well gets the cookie open it up gets the ring and she acts like it’s a friggin prize in a box of cracker jacks. Then she thaws a bit says okay and asks me to take her home to parents. I do and the next day she tells me she got home didn’t say a word but her mom asks about the proposal, I never told Mom a word, and she says yeah he asked me. I should have asked her mom. But bright side we didn’t marry she married my best friend. I am sure we would not have worked out so good times.
This is awesome, David! Congrats!
What an excellent article, thanks for sharing such a special occasion with us.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Congratulations! It will be a fantastic adventure!!
Congratulations!!! Enjoy the next amazing phase of your life together! You’re a genuinely good, warm-hearted person and I am sincerely happy for you – I remember us talking relationships in LA and since then I was really hoping I’d see this day happen!
It’s when you guys love and enjoy the parts that DON’T go to plan that you really know true love and it looks like you’re off to a great start! Wishing you a happy and healthy life together!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I thought her real name was Dottie ha ha
Congrats to you both!
Also it’s mildly funny that your original plan was foiled by what looks like one of the biggest box office bombs in history.
Congratulations. Both an a great partner and a great life to look forward to.
we could question “Elise’s” judgement, but that’s for another day.
so is the anticipation of potential little DT gearheads in the future.
I think the only proper car to drive away from your wedding ceremony is a Lotus Elise.
Congratulations, DT!!!
Well played Mr. Tracy. All the best to you both.
Congratulations! I’m super happy for you both. What a fantastic proposal trip! Moab is a magical place.
Congratulations David!!! Tell me the city inspector from Troy, MI is invited to the wedding in Galping Motors parking lot lol
Congratulations Tracy on your engagement and on a great review of the annuals grenadier!
Now that’s a classy way to propose. Congratulations!
Congratulations to David and “Elise”! Both of you are indeed lucky. May you have many happy healthy years together.
Congratulations!
Really, I’m surprised it took you so long: when you, an honest junkyard rat, published the fact that you had taken a sonic bath, it was quite obvious your life had radically changed. For the better, I should add: you have a partner you adore who is willing to ride & drive alongside you on life’s adventures.
Congratulations! It’s so funny I was talking to my wife about you and your relationship this weekend because apparently I’m weird like that. I remember telling her that I was so curious if you would get engaged anytime soon. Apparently I could sense it. I’m glad that you have a great and documented story to share for the rest of your life! Also I never get tired of Grenadier content.
Now, if I can trigger someone’s OCD. The next time you are in traffic behind a Grenadier look at the bottom corners of the rear doors. The left door corner has a different radius than the corner on the right rear door. That realization really threw off my morning last week.
The question I have about that is: Is it Austro-German-style efficiency, where they carefully calculated the radii needed for each side of the door three times before committing to the blueprint, or is it British-style efficiency where they changed the size halfway through and didn’t bother to change the curves they already had done?
Both are valid schools of thought. I feel like we need to get Jason on this question. I must know the answer!
Congrats David!!
thank you for sharing this life-nugget with us, David.
you are a very good writer and this was a lovely story, well told.
i wish for you to enjoy a happy life together, seems like it is on schedule so far.
-love, droid.
The way David writes on this website shows that beyond the pop culture ignorance and affinity for rusty cars lies a heart as big as all outdoors, an adventurous spirit and unmatched loyalty.
I agree with Mrs. Tracy: he’s a catch. And it appears he’s found one as well.
So incredibly happy for you both! Thank you for taking us along.