Greetings readers. As you know, we have been in a big hiatus for more than a year, enough to make Petroleum Motoring pretty much invisible everywhere. It has been a very rocky process for us, and we would like to share our glimpse into what will happen to this website and brand. Will do my best to keep it short, linear and simple.
The Start of Petroleum Motoring project (2021-2023)
First of all, this project began with high hopes but low expectations, so you can say we did not fall because we flew too high in the sky. We knew the market was getting empty after DriveTribe website was shut down and a the most renowned car journalism brands like Evo, Car Magazine and Top Gear switched their focus on EV cars, which we find generally displeasing because of their unwritten harm to the environment and their anti-enthusiastic measures.
Personally, as the founder of this brand and the website, I had a dream of using this opportunity to expand and broaden our brand to the point of making our dreams a reality, which was being a proper publisher with our own office and magazine. Obviously, this would take more than a few volunteer writers and very irregular posting schedule. Life eventually has to get in the way of things, and this brand was no exception. The first crack in our little world was the departure of the volunteer writers at the beginning of 2023. This marked the downfall of our regular posts, but we still kept our head up by keeping our Discord server alive and still planning posts on our Instagram page alongside our website. However, things took an even worse turn following our loss of our beloved friend Ben Ford in June 2023, who was battling heart conditions and contributed to this community deeply. With his passing, I was left alone with no new volunteer writer left eager enough to join me in this project.
Credit: Jean Jennings, MotorTrend, 2015.
The downfall of our platforms (2024-present)
Naturally this made me lose motivation to continue regular posting as our website basically became a storage for our articles for in-server people to read if they choose. With double burden on my shoulders I have decided to shift my focus to our Instagram page, where we had more potential of racking up views and followers. However, before I could fully commit to the project, I graduated from University and was called by the Naval Forces to do my compulsory 6-months military service from December 2023 to June 2024. As a result, the brand was completely left on its own for half a year, and when I returned, the platform and the Discord server was on its knees anyway. With no new volunteer writers on the horizon, I decided to ditch the website completely and fully focus on Instagram. However, this year changed everything. With life pulling me in a completely different direction, I had to shelf Petroleum Motoring at least until I could find someone new who would help me alongside this journey.
So, to keep it brief, it’s impossible to keep this project going with just me. I need hobby writers who would help me not just here but on Instagram as well. With our TikTok project also being canned, the future of Petroleum Motoring became even more blurry. For now, the project is not dead, but it will not continue as a project with the goal of eventually being one of the biggest journalism publishers. Instead, Petroleum Motoring will keep going as a passion project by me and hopefully future volunteer writers who would not do this as a career but as a hobby, a side project that could fuel their enthusiasm towards cars and other vehicles. We plan to restart and keep our contents going soon, and we thank you for your commitment and support to this project. Thank you!
