Open House at Owl Vans

Owl Vans had an open house yesterday, and since I am local I stopped by. As you might expect it was mainly full of very cool MB Sprinter Van conversions, but it also had three Grenadiers on display. I love how vendors like Owl Vans have been embracing the Grenadier and am really looking forward to seeing more of what they come up with! Here are some photos:

First - One of Owl Van's Grenadiers - Its showcasing their wheels, rock-slider-steps, and new exco-roof rack (its aluminum so meant as a rack system not a roll cage):




This is the watch you need with the Owl Grenadier:


I love how clean the radio install and accessory rack is on the interior of the Owl Grenadier:


Adrenaline HQ had their Grenadier out there too.





That bumper is sweet!


Does the paint scheme look Familiar? Hamilton would like it.


And Rough Road Equipment had their Grenadier with a cool kitchen/bed set-up:



It was a very fun event with live music, a charity raffle, great food, and local micro-brew!

LeeroyJ said:

Owl Vans had an open house yesterday, and since I am local I stopped by. As you might expect it was mainly full of very cool MB Sprinter Van conversions, but it also had three Grenadiers on display. I love how vendors like Owl Vans have been embracing the Grenadier and am really looking forward to seeing more of what they come up with! Here are some photos:

First - One of Owl Van's Grenadiers - Its showcasing their wheels, rock-slider-steps, and new exco-roof rack (its aluminum so meant as a rack system not a roll cage):

This is the watch you need with the Owl Grenadier:

I love how clean the radio install and accessory rack is on the interior of the Owl Grenadier:

Adrenaline HQ had their Grenadier out there too.

That bumper is sweet!

Does the paint scheme look Familiar? Hamilton would like it.

And Rough Road Equipment had their Grenadier with a cool kitchen/bed set-up:

It was a very fun event with live music, a charity raffle, great food, and local micro-brew!

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I'm not a fan of the logo being placed in the middle stripe, but the Gulf livery ode looks great!

Very interesting spot for the GMRS radio install. I been thinking where I am going to put my GRMS radio in the truck, went with Wouxan KG1000G-Plus so I could remote the front panel and hide the main radio body. This might best place Front panel and Mic.

It's great to see another set of rock sliders enter the market. I'm curious to see the price as compared to other U.S. offerings.

I have to say that Gulf Livery is probably my favorite. Is there a vehicle that it doesn't look good on?

The Adrenaline truck reminds me of the Paul Smith Defender 90

Krabby said:

I'm not a fan of the logo being placed in the middle stripe, but the Gulf livery ode looks great!

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The original inspiration

While it is good to see vendors supporting the Gren, a lot of that looks like a scramble and rushed....

[ Adam ] said:

The original inspiration
View attachment 7852721

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This attempt by Owl - initially referred to as an "Exo Cage", and now a roof rack - really illustrates how good Safety Devices is in their construction of actual cages for the Land Rover Defender. The Owl attempt is interesting, but at this point is little more than a poorly executed, ornamental copy of the original.


Safety Devices really does an incredible job of getting the cage close to the body, as well as a layout which is aligned with the body lines of the defender.

The original is, of course made of steel and ties into the frame to provide structural stiffening and support in the case of a roll over. To my knowledge the Owl is aluminum and connects to the L track, and a few riv nuts in the front fenders.

[ Adam ] said:

This attempt by Owl - initially referred to as an "Exo Cage", and now a roof rack - really illustrates how good Safety Devices is in their construction of actual cages for the Land Rover Defender. The Owl attempt is interesting, but at this point is little more than a poorly executed, ornamental copy of the original.
View attachment 7852738

Safety Devices really does an incredible job of getting the cage close to the body, as well as a layout which is aligned with the body lines of the defender.View attachment 7852739

The original is, of course made of steel and ties into the frame to provide structural stiffening and support in the case of a roll over. To my knowledge the Owl is aluminum and connects to the L track, and a few riv nuts in the front fenders.

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I had one on my 110.



Owl was very clear that this is meant as a roof rack not a roll cage.

The install of the cage on my 110 was not a small task, the cage went down to the frame. The roof structure on the Grenadier is far more robust than the 110, so probably the only people who need a true cage on a Grenadier are people doing competitions, extreme rock crawling, or heavy industry.

The SD cages were so well engineered that real CT trucks could be heli-lifted by the cages.

LeeroyJ said:

Owl was very clear that this is meant as a roof rack not a roll cage.

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And the photos show anything beyond the look was an afterthought.

Tom109 said:

And the photos show anything beyond the look was an afterthought.

View attachment 7852751

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I'm not sure we should be judging Owl based on the very first prototype still steaming from the oven that they rushed to have ready for their open house. The guys at Owl care a lot about quality (that is evident if you look at their production ready parts for the Sprinter vans), I would bet the final production versions will have much tighter contours to the vehicle body.

I am just happy to see manufacturers who are excited by the Grenadier and actively working to make new aftermarket items for them.

LeeroyJ said:

Owl was very clear that this is meant as a roof rack not a roll cage.

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I didn't attend the Open House, but on Facebook they introduced this as an "Exo Cage", and when pressed, noted that it is a roof rack, not a cage.



As it sits today - I don't see how they can fulfill the claim of "large amount of weight" because the L track is rated to 40kg per side. Taking a total of 80kg and subtracting the ~27 kg (they indicated a weight of 60 lbs on fbook), leaving you with a carrying capacity of 53 kg, or 116 Lbs.

I understand my back of the napkin estimate is not entirely accurate when it comes to carrying capacity, but it's close enough. I don't think load capacity was a primary "engineering" consideration of Owl for this product.

I'm not entirely surprised, Owl tends to be a little ready, fire, aim when it comes to the Grenadier. We've seen this with their "Analysis" of the raised air intake (not a snorkel), their alignment recommendation and now this fake exo cage.

[ Adam ] said:

As it sits today - I don't see how they can fulfill the claim of "large amount of weight" because the L track is rated to 40kg per side. Taking a total of 80kg and subtracting the ~27 kg (they indicated a weight of 60 lbs on fbook), leaving you with a carrying capacity of 53 kg, or 116 Lbs.

I understand my back of the napkin estimate is not entirely accurate when it comes to carrying capacity, but it's close enough. I don't think load capacity was a primary "engineering" consideration of Owl for this product.

I'm not entirely surprised, Owl tends to be a little ready, fire, aim when it comes to the Grenadier. We've seen this with their "Analysis" of the raised air intake (not a snorkel), their alignment recommendation and now this fake exo cage

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Where does the 40kg per side for the L track come from? I would have thought they could handle more than that? And does "side" mean each track, or each half of the vehicle? A quick search on Google and companies that sell the fittings, like this one, have the fitting itself listed with a 2000lb working load and 6000lb breaking strength. That's just for the fitting, so I would have thought the tracks could hold a lot more than that (since they are designed to hold multiple fittings). I recognize that our factory fittings are not as strong as what I linked, but the track itself should be able to support a lot more than 40Kg "per side". Maybe its the internal supporting for the track that is the weak-link?

That was my Grenadier in the video Owl did about the "raised air intake". It did have water in it from driving through some heavy rain from Seattle to Phoenix. Other than Owl calling it a "Snorkel" when Ineos is calling it a "Raised Air Intake", I don't see what was off in that video?

At the end of the day Owl is a business that is passionate about their products, and they are passionate about the Grenadier. The complaints you have are not about production products, so I think they are totally appropriate to raise as issues, because from I've seen Owl has been very receptive to feedback and suggestions. But at the same time, I think we want to encourage companies that are taking the risk to develop new products for the Grenadier to share those with us. Otherwise everything will be developed in a vacuum and we will have no opportunity to help steer the development, or companies will just decide its not worth entering this market.

If you go on the MB Sprinter forums and check to see the feedback of customers using actual production versions of Owl's products, from my search, it is overwhelming positive.

LeeroyJ said:

Where does the 40kg per side for the L track come from?

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@anand mentioned it on facebook

LeeroyJ said:

That was my Grenadier in the video Owl did about the "raised air intake". It did have water in it from driving through some heavy rain from Seattle to Phoenix. Other than Owl calling it a "Snorkel" when Ineos is calling it a "Raised Air Intake", I don't see what was off in that video?

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There was no evidence (that I recall, the video has been taken down) that any water actually made it into the engine intake. The design of the raised air intake was working as designed.

LeeroyJ said:

At the end of the day Owl is a business that is passionate about their products, and they are passionate about the Grenadier.

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I'm sure they are also nice guys and great to have a beer with.

LeeroyJ said:

The complaints you have are not about production products, so I think they are totally appropriate to raise as issues, because from I've seen Owl has been very receptive to feedback and suggestions.

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My feedback would be this: mod for a purpose.

The fake exo cage turned roof rack brings more negatives and compromises than solutions. It's going to be noisy, create drag, and be more difficult to use than a standard design like Rhino, Leitner, Front Runner, etc.

I also think it's really lame to create fake safety gear just for a look. I get the heritage, and the look he's trying to go for, but it's just kitsch, akin to a Miata sport bar.

LeeroyJ said:

But at the same time, I think we want to encourage companies that are taking the risk to develop new products for the Grenadier to share those with us. Otherwise everything will be developed in a vacuum and we will have no opportunity to help steer the development, or companies will just decide its not worth entering this market.

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If a manufacturer shared a product, got no feedback - and yet no one bought their products, what would they say?

"Why didn't anyone tell us they didn't like this?"

So they are putting their products out there for feedback, great.

I'm giving it.

My other major feedback, for every vendor - I don't want a million logos of your company - or any other, all over my car. If you put your logo front and center on a product, I'm not going to buy your product without a really compelling reason. It's tacky, and I'll just find someone else who solves the problem.