About
We live in Cologne and enjoy a town that is by far not perfect nor particularly beautiful … ok we have the cathedrale … but it’s citizens are open minded as we are … and once a year we all run crazy about our Carneval …
——————————————————————————————————————————————————–
It’s autumn 2023 and round about 3 yrs for Gerrit and 5 yrs for Katarina to work until retirement … and we are preparing for it …
Next week we expect our ‘fun- and retirement activity car’ to be delivered by the dealer. I (Gerrit) already saw it … but before we have a look at it … it’s a small story to tell how this concept developed. It all started with the idea … we need a camper van with Off-Road capabilities…
Prices for a decent van started at €120-130K … Hallelujah … the one above starts at €260K …
Ok, and many have this idea. While coming up with this idea back in 2022, we spent a camping vacation with Katarina’s tiny MX-5 at beautiful Amalfi coast. It was end of September. The camping was still fully booked … all by camper vans. Fortunately there was some space in a corner of the place for our small tent. We saw all these big camper vans having their problem moving and parking the car … and once installed rarely moving it.
This was also the time where the Ineos Grenadier showed up first time on the internet. What a great car and a real successor of the legendary LandRover Defender. We became more and more interested impacting our concept, which became Grenadier with Off-Road trailer…
It was summer and we visited the Caravan Fair in Düsseldorf. Main goal was to check-out the off-road camper trailers. We saw many interesting concepts that could become a candidate. But we also saw these Pickups with a camper cabin on the back. Over the coming weeks this concept became more and more interesting for us, considering the following aspects:
(-) big and long car
(+) full blown camper van
(+) Without cabin useable for daily commuting
(+) possibly no additional car needed
(-) but too large for a Cologne parking garage
(+) The KTM motorbike could be put on the loading area … no need for a separate bike trailer
We decided to give it a try as you don’t want to invest a lot of money to find out that it is not the right concept. We found a pickup camper van rental in South Germany and booked one for a 2 weeks vacation in France (Massive Centrale, Ardeche, Provence)
We spent a great vacation and decided to follow-up on this concept…
The car was great as it was the ‘famous’ Toyota Hilux, 2,8 liter engine with sufficient torque and horsepower. The pickup market leader apart from Ford Ranger. The advantage of the Hilux is that it is the most common and known Pickup in countries where we might want to go to …
Our Hilux Invincible … modifications are:
——————————————————————————————————————————————————–
In 2007 we bought our MG-B from 1974! He became a big friend of ours and we use him as long as TÜV and the weather allows it
1,8 l - 4-Cyl - 95 PS - a really robust and reliable friend which is, as we believe, the best value for money in terms of oldtimers.
Not ‘British Racing Green’, but the Porsche color ‘Venetia Blue’ suits him well!
… and of course ‘right hand drive’
Which you get used to quite easy!