Inside the Box: How PetrolBox Became the Ultimate Monthly Fix for Car Enthusiasts

John Sahr - Owner for Petrol Box

PetrolBox is a car enthusiast subscription box. Every month we send a mystery box out to our subscribers full of useful automotive gear. Items in the box include wearables, tools, car detailing supplies, collectibles, and other novelty items that are useful for your everyday DIY car enthusiast.

Contact: John Sahr at jon@mypetrolbox.com | N/A | Visit Online!

        

• Origin Story of PetrolBox – what inspired the brand?
• What was in the first PetrolBox?
• What were some of the coolest items (in your opinion) that were part of a box?
• What kinds of products does PetrolBox offer? What should someone expect in each month’s box?
• It’s a subscription model, what are the tiers, and what do you get?
• Any sister brands? > Petrol Pups!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder. How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: Each box contains handpicked items, including tools, wearables, garage gear, detailing, supplies, magazines, collectibles, and coupons. Whoa. What are we talking about? You ask tonight? We’re joined by John Sayer from Petrol Box to discuss why this Petrolhead curated monthly box is something you’ll be anxiously anticipating.

Welcome to Break Fix, John.

John Sahr: Thanks for having me.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, so like every good story, there’s an origin. So what inspired Petro Box? Where did [00:01:00] this come from? Where did you come up with the idea?

John Sahr: Well, me and my son used to get loot crates back in the day. We’re kind of nerds as well. I was just thinking at work one day, man, there’s nothing out there for the car enthusiast.

I was a mechanic at the time, so originally my thought was a toolbox, but that’s really hard to do with, uh, tools. Most mechanics have their own preferences, so I just kind of like morphed it into a car enthusiast box and just went with it. And you’re based

Crew Chief Eric: out of Ohio, so right in the center of the domestic car world?

John Sahr: Yeah, we’re in Columbus, Ohio. Huge car following Jake’s is based outta here, so we get a lot of really big American muscle shows here. It’s a pretty nice area for the most part, other than the winter. You still get rust buckets up here.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s talk a little bit about your car history. So what are some of your favorite cars or least favorite cars, maybe even motor sports pass?

John Sahr: I’m really like a Toyota guy mostly. Always have been. I’ve been into vintage Toyota, well old Toyotas really [00:02:00] Right now I have a 1986 Corolla, two-door coop. That’s the last of the rear wheel drive Corollas. And I also have a 1980. Toyota Corolla wagon. That’s a real world drive station wagon. Those are my two like kind of fun cars.

The 86 coupe I’ve been building. It’s kind of like my drift car, but the more and more we’ve been doing track events lately, I kind of wanna make it like I do everything kind of car. The wagon’s just kind of like my nice go to the Saturday cars and coffee show.

Crew Chief Eric: So that 86, that’s the infamous Hachi Roku, right?

That everybody knows from like initial D and and Driftings and things like that.

John Sahr: Yeah, mine’s a coop. Most people, they love the hatch because that’s what initial D had. But I’ve always been a coop guy. I’ve probably had nine or 10 of ’em over the years.

Crew Chief Eric: For the Ford guys, that would be like a notch back fox body versus the Fastback.

Right? That’s what you’re saying with the coop.

John Sahr: Yeah. ’cause a lot of people prefer the coop. Yeah. Just like a fox body for the most part. I, I also prefer the notch back fox [00:03:00] body as well.

Crew Chief Eric: So Drift, huh? So you’re coming out of that world. So what are, in your opinion, some of the best drift cars outside of the 86?

John Sahr: Really the A 86 is not like a great drift car. It’s a pretty good one, but it’s got such a short wheel base. Two 40 SX is like the king. You can’t really get any better than a two 40 SX no matter what year it is.

Crew Chief Eric: So do you think we got shortchanged when it came to JDM cars? Like they still kept all the good stuff?

Or do you think there’s some real gems, maybe some cars that people didn’t think about that are here in the States that could be built upon?

John Sahr: I think that there’s a lot of good cars that we got here in the States. Really, it’s just the late nineties that we kind of got screwed on. You know, we didn’t get the S fifteens, we never got the skylines and whatnot like that, but there’s a lot of good cars here in America.

We have friends with the Catfish, Camaros, that drift. I’ve seen Fox bodies out there. I’ve seen C fives. That’s kind of a big thing now is the c fives are getting really big in the drift community.

Crew Chief Eric: There is even a spec C five track series being born, [00:04:00] I believe, out of the West Coast. So that’s kind of interesting that we’re seeing a resurgence in the c fifth generation Corvettes.

Yeah,

John Sahr: they’re starting to get down there in price, and I think people are realizing what kind of value those cars really bring.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, they weren’t the most attractive Corvette, but they had a lot of good things underneath. I’ve gotten a chance to coach and many of ’em and drive a few, and they’re actually phenomenal.

I mean, when you’re behind the steering wheel, does it really matter what it looks like?

John Sahr: Well, and it’s the last of the, uh, popup headlights. You know, you’re either a popup headlight guy or you’re not.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s very true. It actually, we talked about it on a recent drive through episode, where the C five Corvette was the last car to have.

Pop up headlights in the world, period. So it’s actually kind of cool to keep that tradition all the way up to like 2004. So it’s kind of neat. So that being said, what do you think is the sexiest car ever in your opinion? Like something you strive for, something you want? Oh man.

John Sahr: If I were to like win the lottery or something like that, it’s gotta be like a 2000 GT Toyota.

That’s my like unobtainable dream car. I know I’ll [00:05:00] never be able to reach, but I’ve seen a few of ’em at like Japanese classic car show out in Long Beach. We’ve been to the Peterson. They have one of the convertibles there, and those cars are just beautiful.

Crew Chief Eric: And on the other side of that pendulum swing, what’s the, just the ugliest car ever.

John Sahr: Oh man, there are so many of ’em.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, how about Jdm since you’re a JDM guy or the ugliest Toyota for that matter? Is there one,

John Sahr: it’s hard for me to say though. ’cause I, I really like a lot of cars, pretty much every kind of car. Some of those mid nineties, like Toyota Starlets, we didn’t get here. Hmm. Those, those are kinda weird looking cars, but a lot of ’em came with turbos too.

So they’re kind of neat. But teach their own, everybody, everybody has their own thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely.

John Sahr: So let’s

Crew Chief Eric: jump back into Petro Box. That’s what we’re here to talk about, right? So obviously you’re a petrolhead come from the JDM and Drift world. So let’s talk about Petro Box itself. You know, we know where the, where it came from, where you got the idea.

So what was in the first petro box?

John Sahr: So the first petro box was actually [00:06:00] five years ago. Pretty much exactly. We sent out in November, 2016. It had some products from Jacks Wax. They’re a local Columbus company, so we work with them frequently. So, and then it also had apparel from Scotch and Iron, one of our long affiliated companies that we work with quite regularly.

It’s been so long ago, but it’s hard to think that we’ve been sending these out for five years.

Crew Chief Eric: What are some of the coolest items? That you’ve put in a box after all these years, something you’re like, man, I wish we could do that again, or, that was one of the hottest things that we put in a box.

John Sahr: Yeah.

That, that’s one hard thing that we have to kind of balance is we can’t send the same items all that often, you know, because we do have customers that have been subscribers for pretty much five years. I, I don’t want to shortchange those guys, but some of the coolest items we’ve sent out, we’ve worked with the Shark Tank Company Grip Mat, which is a silicone base like.

Tool and spare part holder. That was really neat. Uh, we’ve worked [00:07:00] with a lot of really neat companies like Mishimoto. We’ve worked with Hogan several different times. It’s just neat to meet some of these other business owners and be able to put their products in their box.

Crew Chief Eric: Are there certain things that you kept for yourself?

You’re like, man, these are the awesomeness of the awesome.

John Sahr: Every month I take home like a little box of my own. So I ha I have all my cleaning supplies and everything in the garage. Uh, all the tools I have most t-shirts, but sometimes you get the luck of the draw and we’re completely sold out of the size that I wear or something like that.

There have been a couple t-shirts that have slipped by that I just can’t even get anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: So how do you go about building these relationships? Like how do you figure out what to put in the box? How does that work?

John Sahr: I really like every kind of car. I try to keep myself as neutral as possible. Being a Toyota Motorhead, uh, I, I still love the new Mustangs.

I, I love the new Corvettes. I wanna make something that. Everybody can find a use for the products that we’re sending. I don’t want to [00:08:00] alienate any certain genre.

Crew Chief Eric: We gonna see some model cars in the future, maybe some Hot Wheels, matchbox type stuff in the box. I mean, there, there’s, that’s also another side of collecting.

John Sahr: Uh, we have worked with, uh, M two machines before and put their die cast in the box. Unfortunately, just, I’ve reached out to a lot of those companies and it’s very hard to get in contact with some of those bigger die cast and boy companies. But if any of ’em want to be in the box. We’ll definitely put ’em in

Crew Chief Eric: there.

I’ve been a subscriber now for over a year and I’ve been keeping an eye on things myself. And I find it funny, every month there’s a sticker in the box and I love it ’cause they change. Sometimes it’s a Corvette race card. A couple months ago it was the Audi Sport Quattro, the S one, things like that. And so I have actually taken to turning them into magnets so I can have them on my refrigerator and all that kind of thing.

So it’s actually a lot of fun. I look forward to even those little things in the box, not just the cleaning supplies or the T-shirts. And there’s been some really great t-shirts and I gotta say. The one you guys did for the Overland community, for the off roaders with the Jeep. That was absolutely [00:09:00] fantastic.

I love that kind of stuff. And there, there are a bunch of petrol box shirts I wear all the time and people ask me, where did you get that? I’m like, came in my monthly box. You should sign up.

John Sahr: That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s it’s amazing. Uh. Some of the shirts, I’ve been lucky enough to go to SEMA a couple times before COVID shut down.

Pretty much everything. Some of the pictures I have on my phone are just people wearing petrol box shirts that I see just walking through the crowd and it’s just kind of neat to see that. Yeah, there there’s a lot of really neat. Things that we’ve put in the boxes I’m really proud of, like where it’s kind of grown

Crew Chief Eric: inside the box.

Cleaning supplies, t-shirts, some sort of little kitschy item, like the stickers or the magnets or whatever, some tools. Is there anything else in the box? Like what should people expect when they open a box for the first time?

John Sahr: No. You’ll always expect something that you’re gonna be able to wear, something you’re gonna be able to use to clean your car.

And then just other really useful items. We always try to include one of our legendary [00:10:00] livery stickers each month. We also have a magnet of one of our subscribers cars. They really love that we have an entire refrigerator in the warehouse just filled with magnets.

Crew Chief Eric: How do you become one of those rides in the month?

How does that work?

John Sahr: If you wanna reach out to us. info@mypetrolbox.com. Just shoot us a high resolution photo. I keep those all in a folder every month. I just kind of go through and I, I’ll double check, make sure you’re still a subscriber, and then we’ll throw that on the magnet and put it out the next month.

That’s awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: So it’s a subscription model, obviously. What are the tiers? What do you get in the different tiers and what do they cost?

John Sahr: So we have our Petro box basic, which is typically two to three items each month, starting at 1995 a month. Then we have our petro box premium, which is typically five to seven items.

Some of the bigger, heavier items in this box, starting at 39.95 a month, and depending on how long you subscribe, does get a little bit cheaper as well.

Crew Chief Eric: So there’s two tiers, and obviously it’s probably cheaper if you buy the whole year up [00:11:00] front than going monthly as well, right?

John Sahr: Correct. Yeah. If you bought 12 months for the subscription, you’re basically getting like two months free.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, like a lot of other companies that do this, there’s usually sister brands or other things that people aren’t aware of. So is there anything else that Petro Box or that you’re involved in that you’d wanna let people know about?

John Sahr: So recently, just this year, we did start our dog accessory brand.

It’s called Petrol Pup. Oh, petrol Pup is, uh, a thing I’ve been working on for a while. I have probably the cutest dog in the world, and, uh, he just needed some more space to shine. So we, uh, got him his own little brand of car enthusiasts, motor sports inspired dog collars and leashes. Right now we have about seven different designs.

Crew Chief Eric: And is that a separate subscription or is that something that’s included with Petro Box?

John Sahr: It’s not included in the Petro Box. Uh, it’s actually its own kind of separate thing. You can order some of the petro box stuff to go in your first box, but we we’re never gonna just blindly guess like what kind [00:12:00] of dog or size of dog you have.

So that stuff will be just all by itself. It’s just something that. We found pretty fun and, and I thought it kind of fit a niche that there wasn’t anything out there for, ’cause my dog loves going to the car shows and all the attention he gets, so we just get ’em, uh, looking good for the car shows.

Crew Chief Eric: Doggy bandanas are big to do.

We actually have them available on our store site as well with our logos on them. And a lot of our members, you know, put them on their dogs and obviously they switch ’em up. It’s like wearing T-shirts, right? Yeah. Well this time I’m gonna wear Formula one bandana next week I’m gonna wear a petrol beds, bandana or whatever.

So, you know, it all worked. But, so you were talking about the subscription all that five years. Now in, in the making, how big has Petro Box gotten? How many subscribers do you guys have?

John Sahr: So right now, typical month is a little over 1500 boxes. So it’s going all around the world. Takes quite a bit of time and effort to get those boxes put together.

Crew Chief Eric: So that being said, you know, with us looking at the holiday season, you know, it’s very fast approaching any shout outs. [00:13:00] Promotions, special discounts, anything you wanna throw out there, do you wanna let people know about?

John Sahr: Yeah, absolutely. The, one of the best coupon codes we have out there is 2021. You’ll get 21% off your entire first order from Petrol box.

So you’ll get that first month’s box for 21% off.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s, that’s a really solid deal, and that’s good through the end of the calendar year through 2021.

John Sahr: Correct.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s awesome. Check that out. Listeners. Get 21% off your subscription of Petro Box starting now on the holidays through the end of the year.

That’s really, really cool. I also noticed on the website there’s a win, a set of RoboForm wheels. How do we go about doing that? Exactly.

John Sahr: So every month we go through and we completely randomize our list of subscribers. We select one subscriber’s box, we’ll pull their shipping label out and add one of our golden tickets to the box.

The Golden Ticket WA is a shiny glittery ticket. It’ll tell you that you’ve won a free set of rot form wheels, and just email us. We’ll get [00:14:00] you in contact with, uh, one of our reps, and we’ll get those wheels sent out directly to you.

Crew Chief Eric: I tell you what, I did get a little excited one month, but then I realized it was exhaust wrap that was gold.

And I was

John Sahr: like, oh, yeah, I, I, I did have a few emails about that. People that were a little, uh, little surprised that they thought they had won. And

Crew Chief Eric: I thought that was, I think that was April. So that made total sense. And I was like, oh man, I just got punked. I was like, it was pretty cool. It was a good joke, right?

I was like, all right, whatever. So yeah, that

John Sahr: was one that was like, that’s a cool item too. A lot of people found, uh, uses for that. Track rats find, use for all the things in the

Crew Chief Eric: petro box

John Sahr: for sure. So it’s all for, it’s all good. One of the main things about Petro Box is that we kind of make sure that the box is out there for everyone.

Uh, we recently just started to take people’s information to let it best know what kind of cars they like. So it’s domestic, Asian, European, or if you just like everything, we are trying to create this box exactly for you. [00:15:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Are you thinking like maybe themed boxes, like a Ferrari Box one month and a BMW Box another month, something like that to mix it up?

John Sahr: I think maybe those might be seasonal things when we have a little bit more time and effort because Petro Box is basically just me. I run the daily I. Do all the packaging. I have some, I have a good group of friends that really help each month put the boxes together. All these friends are just huge motorheads from drag racing to track, to drifting and, and we kind of support it all out there.

Crew Chief Eric: Mad props, by the way, because one of the boxes, I don’t remember which month it was this year, there were socks from Heel Tread and I got super excited because they were on the show as well. John Sallows, super nice, and we talked about all sorts of things on his episode and it was really cool to open a.

Petrol box. Oh my God. There’s heel tread socks in here. So it’s good to see this crosspollination in the motorsport enthusiast world and in the car enthusiast world. And you’re bringing it all together, like you said, for all of us. And I think it’s awesome. And I, and you know, I look [00:16:00] forward to every box I get every month and I open it up and I’m like, yeah, this is great.

You know, and unlike a lot of other. Box subscriptions. Like once you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, it did get to the point where it was very repetitive and so I was like, ah, you know, I, and I don’t wanna see the same thing twice and I can understand how difficult that is to source new things, unique things and keep it interesting and keep it fresh.

But, you know, mad props for doing this. And like you said, you’re filling a corner of the car enthusiast world that nobody else is doing right now. And it’s super awesome. It’s commendable and, and I can’t say thank you enough.

John Sahr: I appreciate that a lot. Yeah. Hera is a great company to work with. They’re out of Portugal.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, we’ve worked with them a couple different times actually. Like I said, we try not to overdo it, so we won’t, we’ve sent out their socks two or three times, I think now.

Crew Chief Eric: So folks, to get the best in automotive swag and goodies, you definitely have to check out Petrol Box. Hop on over to my petrol box.com and see the [00:17:00] previous month’s collections and sign up today, especially using that coupon code 2021 to get 21% off your subscription or follow them on social at.

Petrol box. John, I can’t thank you enough for coming on and telling us about this, especially now that we’re approaching the holiday season and people are thinking about gifts for their loved ones, especially for Petrolhead. We’re probably some of the toughest people to shop for because we already have all the toys and the gadgets and tools and petrol box.

I think just complete. That missing thing that we’re always looking for. It’s a great stocking stuffer, so thank you.

John Sahr: Thank you so much for inviting me on. That’s great. Absolutely.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsport. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows. You can call or [00:18:00] text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newton’s, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be [00:19:00] possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Meet John Sahr from Petrol Box
• 00:54 The Origin of Petrol Box
• 01:45 John’s Car History and Drift Insights
• 05:42 Petrol Box: The First Box and Coolest Items
• 10:29 Subscription Tiers and Special Offers
• 11:18 Petrol Pup: A New Venture
• 12:38 Closing Remarks and Promotions
• 17:44 Outro and GTM Information

EXCLUSIVE PROMO CODE WHEN YOU LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE!

To get the best in automotive schwag and goodies, you definitely have to check out petrol box! Hop over to www.mypetrolbox.com and see previous month’s collections, and sign-up today, or follow them on social @petrol.box 

Consider becoming a GTM Patreon Supporter and get behind the scenes content and schwag!