"Why a newspaper" is a complex question with a simple origin. The idea for The Petrolicious Post did not start with a corporate strategy meeting or a format discussion. It started with a practical problem. Michael Chapin, CEO of Petrolicious, was in the garage looking for newspaper to catch a bit of oil and realized there wasn’t any.
“There’s no newspaper anymore,” he said. “I was standing in the garage with my dad, looking for something that used to just be there, and it wasn’t.” The observation wasn’t framed as nostalgia. It was a practical recognition that something once ordinary and widely available had quietly fallen out of everyday life.
That moment pointed toward a larger question Petrolicious has been exploring for years. Print still matters to the brand, but the way print exists now has changed. What used to be ordinary has become precious. Magazines became books. Books became objects. Objects became things you tend to admire more than interact with.
There was little interest in revisiting that model. Across the industry, print has increasingly moved toward larger, more expensive formats, driven as much by economics as by taste. The result is impressive objects, but ones that are harder to sustain and harder for readers to casually engage with. “At some point it stopped being about something you actually read,” he said. “It became something you owned.”
Instead, he kept coming back to the absence of something smaller and more casual. Something you could read without committing to it as an object. Something you wouldn’t hesitate to pick up with dirty hands.
“I don’t want to sit there and be precious with it,” he said. “I just want to read something that’s not a screen.”
That distinction matters. The newspaper is not positioned as a rejection of digital or film. It responds to the way people engage differently with print versus screens, while acknowledging that not all print invites participation. As formats have grown larger and more luxurious, they can become intimidating, something to admire rather than actually use.
Screens encourage scanning. You read a few paragraphs. You move on. Even when the content is good, the environment works against long form engagement. Print, when it is approachable, changes that dynamic. You are already sitting down. You are already taking time. You are more likely to read something all the way through.
“When it’s print, you’re in a different mindset,” he said. “You’re actually there with it.”
That mindset opens the door for a different kind of content. The newspaper allows the broader Petrolicious team to tell stories in ways that don’t always fit neatly on screen. Deep dives that expand on films, behind the scenes reporting, long form essays, historical context, games, classifieds, obituaries, and smaller moments that reward time and curiosity rather than clicks.
The decision was also shaped by economics. Smaller magazines stopped being viable. Prices rose. Formats expanded. For many publishers, the only way to sustain print was to sell fewer copies at higher prices. The result is often impressive, but narrow.
That shift reflects a broader reality. As production costs rose and audiences fragmented, print increasingly moved toward formats better suited to display than daily use.
“That’s just where the market went,” he said. “When it got harder to make small print work, everything moved upmarket. Bigger formats, higher prices, fewer people buying them. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but it also changes how print gets used.”
The Post is not positioned as a correction or a protest. It is simply an alternative. Where luxury print often asks to be handled carefully and consumed deliberately, a newspaper is designed to disappear into daily life. It is cheaper to produce, easier to distribute, and easier to live with. It does not demand preservation. It accepts wear. It accepts being folded, shared, left behind, or perhaps, to catch a little oil.
From the beginning, Petrolicious has worked as a conduit between readers and people doing meaningful work in and around car culture. The Post extends that effort beyond any single voice, shaped by editors, writers, photographers, and contributors who collectively decide what is worth putting on paper.
“We’ve seen it happen,” he said. “When the right people find the work at the right time, it can change things.”
The newspaper builds on that idea by shifting the focus away from promotion and metrics and toward simple discovery. Just as Chapin needed a newspaper for a specific, practical reason in the garage, the Post is meant to be useful first. It puts the work in front of the reader without asking it to justify itself or perform. What matters is whether it holds your attention long enough to keep reading.
If you’d like to be part of it from the beginning, the first issue is available through January 7. We hope you’ll join us.
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