Featured: Welcome to the New Petrolicious

Welcome to the New Petrolicious

By
November 20, 2015

When we launched Petrolicious three years ago, we decided to focus our resources on creating great content and not worry too much about inventing new user experiences on the site. And during those three years, you have rewarded us with your time and attention,  despite the user experience having become vintage (dare I say, even Pre-War) by modern web standards. You put up with a painful mobile experience. You endured bouts of incredibly slow response times. And you shared our articles on Facebook, even though we would often show the wrong article image to your friends. I guess you loved us the way you love a vintage car, with all that comes with it.

We’ve long been due for an overhaul: so here’s the new Petrolicious. Unlike new iterations of cars that add weight and numbness, I think you’ll find the new experience a lot more agile and lightweight. We’ll be monitoring usage of the new site closely and listening to your feedback to make adjustments accordingly. And over the next few months, we’ve planned a few more exciting features and tools that we’ll be releasing incrementally.

Oh, and we decided to give our current film series a name: Made To Drive. I hope you enjoy and share the series trailer we put together. If you suspect that a series name implies additional series in the future, you would not be wrong! Look for a new film format coming very soon…

Maybe three years from now we’ll look back and feel nostalgic for the original Series I, Euro-bumper Petrolicious site, but somehow I doubt it. Enjoy, and please tell us what you think.

Drive Tastefully®

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Reid Stillman
Reid Stillman
8 years ago

Why make the comments section more difficult to get to? Why make the site more difficult to navigate in order to look pretty?

Lars Banka
Lars Banka
8 years ago

Hi guys, nice revamp but two questions: where is the ol’ content gone and where is the search-button?

Cheers

Paul Steel
Paul Steel
8 years ago

Two things I noticed just now, when I login (FB) and select videos, it doesn’t show the latest vids, the first vid is from sept. Also I can’t workout how to add a favourite, this is from an iPad.

Paul Steel
Paul Steel
8 years ago

Content makes the site, that’s why I have been here so long, the content is top notch, but I’m still getting used to the new layout and interface, it works but the comments section seems a bit disconnected, but hey ho, sure I’ll come around eventually, I like old things so it takes me a bit of time 😉

Steve Visek
Steve Visek
8 years ago

You content is top notch and keeps me coming back every week and often in between. Please continue to make the old content available. Five pages of videos is good but all of them would be a lot better.

I loved you old site. Biggest problem so far is having to click 4 times to start a video.

Kiwiboy105
Kiwiboy105
8 years ago

Great stuff fellas!

David Lake
David Lake
8 years ago

Some great stories in there.
Thanks for putting it all together for the world to enjoy.
I love Petrolicious….

Bryan Dickerson
Bryan Dickerson
8 years ago

Hey guys.
You know I love what you do and I’m really trying to like this. I’m sure I’ll keep coming back, but the new stuff leaves me cold so far. Maybe it’s the white, or the logging in, or the new categories, and I definitely miss the old, simple petrolicious intro to the videos. I just don’t find myself looking forward to it like I used to. Like an old bud that’s gotten a little too cool or a GTV with new 18″ rims.

rob
rob
8 years ago

Not a real fan of this new website design.Hopefully it will be refined or change in the coming months.
Still love Petrolicious.No other website comes close.

Kurt Uzbay
Kurt Uzbay
8 years ago

The new site is great.. the old site was also great ..
We’re all here to quench out thirst for the delicious content Afshin and his crew provide…
and for that- we’re all grateful…
Kurt

Jim Goodlett
Jim Goodlett
8 years ago

Simplicity is the new complexity…well played…now then, about that search button??!?!?!?!

Wayne Mattson
Wayne Mattson
8 years ago

I like the design but it does not seem to run very well on an iPad, very “clunky” and not smooth at all. I’m going to hold judgement until some of the bugs have been worked out.

Patricio Motta
Patricio Motta
8 years ago

Congratulations for this incredible new petrolicious! Cheers from Argentina!

stefan schoonbrood
stefan schoonbrood
8 years ago

Congratulations on the new site guys. The past years you delivered a through classic car experience and you’re clearly continuing that wonderful path. Great job.

Dan Tucker
Dan Tucker
8 years ago

I come for the cars and the articles. If they’re here, I’m here.

Nils Wenzler
Nils Wenzler
8 years ago

Hi,
I really like the changes. However, there seems to be one annoying issue (at least for me). The site does not remember my login/auto login. So far not really a problem. But now I get a pop-up asking me to login every time I load an article…
Would be nice to fix/change either the auto-login or the pop-up

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

Ante Ćale
Ante Ćale
8 years ago

Love it!

jolocho
jolocho
8 years ago

New look is good and compact, but what’s with the animated ads? Are we not designing tastefully any more?

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago
Reply to  jolocho

Thanks! Regarding the ads, we don’t design them, but we do weed out obnoxious ads.

Rene Borggreve
Rene Borggreve
8 years ago

Congratulations with your new look. I love it. I’ll think that a printed “Petrolicious Magazine” next to the website would be a great idea.

Michael Squeo
Michael Squeo
8 years ago

Afshin. Still getting used to this. After Latest comes Featured, which in this case is the amazing Alfa garage. Then comes your amazing film section followed by most popular. Is that most popular over any specific period of time? I must admit the white makes everything pop, but a little warmth was lost. I’ll keep at it as this is one of my two favorite daily sites, and no one does film like you do.

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago
Reply to  Michael Squeo

Hi Michael,

The Most Popular section currently has a bug – it shows all-time popular articles. Soon it will be showing most popular articles over the last 30 days.

I, too, have a soft spot for the beige. We may see how we could add some accents back in.

John
John
8 years ago

I like it so far. Is the number next to the little eye the tally of views? Why are videos over the last year so much lower on total views? It seems they dropped off drastically at some point.

RdS
RdS
8 years ago

Not so much a comment on the updated website (I’ll have to have a proper play with it before I have anything useful to say..), but with the naming of the film series to “man and machine”…
Are you aware this is the name of a TV show in Australia, that also happens to be about people and their cars? Its just such a specific name.. that is (according to google at least) already in use for something so similar…

RdS
RdS
8 years ago

Not so much a comment on the updated website (I’ll have to have a proper play with it before I have anything useful to say..), but with the naming of the film series to “man and machine”…
Are you aware this is the name of a TV show in Australia, that also happens to be about people and their cars? Its just such a specific name.. that is (according to google at least) already in use for something so similar…

Willam Giltzow
Willam Giltzow
8 years ago

I despise having to log in to view a website for entertainment or research, which are the two reasons I do log in to Petrolicious. So far so bad, but I have not really used the new site yet. That said, I will never use Petrolicious on anything smaller than a large laptop, so please do not reduce the resolution of any graphic image.

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago
Reply to  Willam Giltzow

Hi Willam,

We don’t require you to log in to view the site. Login is only needed to comment.

As for image sizes, we’re big believers in big, bold images!

Thanks for reading.

Michael Squeo
Michael Squeo
8 years ago

I may be in the minority here, and admittedly have not spent too much time using the new-look product, but I’m lost. I’ll keep trying since I think you guys have an amazing site, but so far it’s a clear thumbs-down.

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago
Reply to  Michael Squeo

Michael,
Sorry to hear that! If you could be more specific, that would help us make adjustments to make the site better for everyone.
Thanks.

Dain Comella
Dain Comella
8 years ago

very clean-good looks guys

Amir Kakhsaz
Amir Kakhsaz
8 years ago

I never liked the beige. While it may have added “character”, the white looks cleaner and makes the photos pop much more on the page. Perhaps adding something in the margins like a greyed out old car sketch that’s static but changes each time you load a different page would be cool when viewing on the desktop.

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago
Reply to  Amir Kakhsaz

Cool suggestion! We’ll look into it.

Damien Bourne
Damien Bourne
8 years ago

This is much more fluid and easy with cell phone than before. For now I do regret the graphics, I found the old version more refined and attractive in this particular point. But for the reading it is far better!!
What it misses too is the possibility to re-edit a post once sent if we want to correct it. For those whose english is not the first language that may be useful.

Thanks and keep this spirit!!

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago
Reply to  Damien Bourne

Thanks for the feedback, Damien.
By the graphics, do you mean the new logo or the layout?

Robert Hiermeier
Robert Hiermeier
8 years ago

Petrolicious is by far the best website I have ever encountered, Keep up the great job !!!!

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago

Now we’re blushing!
Thanks for such high praise!

Lorenzo Gironzini
Lorenzo Gironzini
8 years ago

…what’s going on with the avatar image? I uploaded one, sometimes it appears, sometimes doesn’t … weird …

Lorenzo Gironzini
Lorenzo Gironzini
8 years ago

oh guys for sure Petrolicious needed a refresher ! so far it’s looking pretty smooth and fast, I still haven’t tried the search and the new menus. What are you going to sell in the shop? 🙂

Shawn Sepehry
Shawn Sepehry
8 years ago

Missing are the search bar and the ability to bookmark articles while inside the article.

Todd Torabi
8 years ago
Reply to  Shawn Sepehry

Great point, Shawn. Both will be available in the coming weeks!

shawn sepehry
shawn sepehry
8 years ago

I love the new site!
Since I discovered the site a long time ago, it’s been one of the best feeds on my daily read. Every article and video is wonderful and different than other sites that only cover industry news and supercars exclusively.

I love the redesign and the beautiful image treatment and overall look.
I view the site through Feedly (an xml feed aggregate that I highly recommend) and I would like to see the same bold image and design be on my feed. Currently it shows a small thumbnail and one line of text. I still click because I know the content is amazing.

Sorry for the long post.

Todd Torabi
8 years ago
Reply to  shawn sepehry

Thanks for pointing out the issue on Feedly! We’ll work on a solution asap.

Walter Moore
Walter Moore
8 years ago

Well done!

Godvater
Godvater
8 years ago

This looks perfect !

But there is a problem with the homepage. I can not open the Homepage since I have logged in 🙁

Chris Gonzalez
8 years ago
Reply to  Godvater

Could you give us more details on the problem you are having with the homepage?

Samir Shirazi
8 years ago

seems a little odd to me the new Petrolicious, but I am sure it become better everyday,Congrats!

Todd Torabi
8 years ago
Reply to  Samir Shirazi

Merci!

Scott Allen
Scott Allen
8 years ago

I think one of the things I like about old cars…is that they don’t change…
I am not really so interested in new cars, I like stopping time with the older cars.
We often hear that new cars are all the same…which seems to be true.
and I generally don’t like it when a web-site changes it format and turns out like all the rest.

I like massive photos…that fill the whole screen…and that seems to be lost here.

Ted Gushue
8 years ago
Reply to  Scott Allen

Our old site was built on rickety architecture that would frequently crash, we needed to make a transition to a new site architecture that could handle our ever increasing traffic load. We’re a really lean company that is self funded out of our own love of cars, as such some of the features we loved the most from the old site are going to be slightly delayed on the rollout.

Please, please bear with us as we lock down these issues in our Beta phase and rollout some of the features that you all know and love.

Godvater
Godvater
8 years ago
Reply to  Scott Allen

I kinda miss those large photos too but other than that everyhting looks fine to me. And as a developer myself I know it is very easy to fix. I hope they will change it 🙂

Frank Anigbo
8 years ago

One thing that I cannot find and will miss with the redesign is the ability to filter content by make (like Ferrari, Jaguar, etc.) Sometimes I just want to see what content is available for a certain make and do not want to wade through everything else.

As for the old site, it was starting to look like a lonely place to be — with content that (maybe it’s my imagination) appears less appealing that in the past. What I like most about this new version is that you see more content all at once, giving the feeling that you are in a place with a lot going on and with a mix of content to keep one interested, at the same time so cleanly laid out that it does not feel overwhelming. It will take some time to get used to the change but I think this is for the better.

Afshin Behnia
Afshin Behnia
8 years ago
Reply to  Frank Anigbo

Frank, search and Browse by Marque are going to come back. There were a number of items that we had to put off a little while.

Maxime Veilleux
Maxime Veilleux
8 years ago

Fantastic design, slick and clean

The interface is user friendly, mobile friendly also

As with your videos a lot of time seems invested in this and it pays off.

Great job guys and let hope we got a lot more years of amazing content in front of us.

Cheers.

Guitar Slinger
Guitar Slinger
8 years ago

First impressions ? Overly busy .. the site has lost all its wonderful charm , artistry , visual appeal and beauty [ just opening the old site was worth the effort whether there was an article of interest or not ] … looking overly homogenized , sanitized , twitterized with the likes of myself [ Old Guys ] are definitely not the intended demographic as have been some of the articles of late . e.g. Boomers .. especially well informed Boomers .. need not apply . I had the gut feeling once y’all sold your souls this’d be the end result … hence my previous exit .. but I was hoping maybe i was wrong . Sadly … I was more right .. and quicker than I ever could of imagined . So Good Luck …. and Good Night gentlemen . Its been a strange trip indeed . But the journey .. like many a journey .. has come to an inglorious end

Ted Gushue
Ted Gushue
8 years ago
Reply to  Guitar Slinger

You quit the site once a week, don’t you?

Mauricio Cremer
Mauricio Cremer
8 years ago
Reply to  Guitar Slinger

Cheers, friend … see you next week!

Alejandro Necesitoeljamón
Alejandro Necesitoeljamón
8 years ago
Reply to  Guitar Slinger

Answered prayers will make believers of us all.

Henrik Hammarvid
Henrik Hammarvid
8 years ago

Excellent.

Pablo Nazar Castro
Pablo Nazar Castro
8 years ago

Great!

Rachel Watson
Rachel Watson
8 years ago

Man and Machine? That’s a shame, not all your readers are men…

Alan
Alan
8 years ago
Reply to  Rachel Watson

You could also interpret it as “mankind” 😉

Ted Gushue
Ted Gushue
8 years ago
Reply to  Rachel Watson

Indeed they are not! We are referring to “man” in the Vitruvian sense.

Andrew Salt
Andrew Salt
8 years ago

First impressions…
A bit clean and clinical, but I should maybe wait for the other tweaks that are coming before being too critical. I did prefer the way the images were laid out amongst the story beter than the new moving banner – and I miss the classic colours you are famous for.
I do like the fact that comments need to be specifically accessed rather than always visible.

Ted Gushue
Ted Gushue
8 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Salt

We have that same gallery feature coming back, just taking time for us to find a way to make it mobile friendly.

Pier Volvo
Pier Volvo
8 years ago

Oh gosh I really like the old classic design! also in the web!

Alan
Alan
8 years ago

Like the website, love the trailer!

Fredrik Assarsson
Fredrik Assarsson
8 years ago

Nononononono.
not yet another uninspiring web page with a “mobile-friendly-look”. It’s apparently quicker to load, yes, but dull. I’m sorry but it’s as dull as a grey car on a grey car park on a rainy day in northern Sweden and to me petrolicious is a bright red, noisy roadster on a back road. Spitting oil mist and flames out the sidepipes. Not this.

To me it seems as all “mobile-sites” try to filter the users information flow without knowing the user and none tailor to the individuals wants. I like seing “everything” at once and letting myself filter out what I want. Take pictures-in-a-row for example. Uninspiring! Now there’s arrows covering the beautiful pictures both to the left and to the right and it makes my eyes hurt. You used to have all the pictures in a wonderful mix right in front of my eyes, spreading out like a canvas of Giallo Ocra, Rosso530, Nero Etna and Blu Olandese. Now it’s just one at a hime it seems. Like standing in a queue and waiting for the next order of fries.

No, I’m not inspired, in fact my boner’s loosing wood.

Update the old look please and make improvements on that instead of filtering out the user’s experience. It’s not like mobile-views seem to actually work any better on either of my platforms anyway, they just function differently but not for the better.

bring back the canvas of cars!

Fredrik Assarsson
Fredrik Assarsson
8 years ago

Meant to write “just one at a time”.

Pier Volvo
Pier Volvo
8 years ago

I quote you Fredrik Assarsson

Guitar Slinger
Guitar Slinger
8 years ago

Amen good sir … in spades ! Beauty rather than perceived convenience along with trying to appeal to a demographic that in fact does not care a wits end about cars should of remained the priority

And again Mr Assarsson I say …. AMEN !

Ted Gushue
Ted Gushue
8 years ago

Please keep in mind that we are currently in Beta, lots of fixes and features rolling out in the next days and weeks!

Rudolf Wesseln
Rudolf Wesseln
8 years ago

I like it! It is new and came as a surprise but I like the new style.
But one more thing: How about shipping of your T-shirts etc. to the old world (VAT, customs and so on)?

bavarian_love
bavarian_love
8 years ago

Amazing

Wood Herren
Wood Herren
8 years ago

I like the tiled look on the homepage. It makes it much easier to navigate. Thank you for improving the page design!

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