Operator's manual — original car art
Petrol & Ink

Petrol & Ink / The index

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Look up a technical question, follow a car story or find an artwork.

  1. Product or collection

    1930: The Roadster

    One continuous line on cream paper - sweeping wings, spare wheel, a single red accent. First of the Silhouette Era set.

    1930: The Roadster
  2. Product or collection

    1965: The Coupe

    The long-bonneted fastback GT in one confident line, teal accent on the wheel arc. Second of the set.

    1965: The Coupe
  3. Product or collection

    1985: The Wedge

    Pop-up lamps and sharp angles - the eighties wedge in a single stroke, red accent on the wing. Third of the set.

    1985: The Wedge
  4. Product or collection

    1995: The Icon

    The nineties performance coupe - smooth canopy, big rear wing - drawn in one line. Fourth of the set.

    1995: The Icon
  5. Product or collection

    Aerodynamica

    Wind-tunnel poetry: cyan streamlines flowing over a wedge-era supercar silhouette.

    Aerodynamica
  6. Product or collection

    Apex at Dawn

    A 1930s open-wheel racer crests the hill at sunrise, dust trailing. Grand-prix romance in ochre, cream and signal red.

    Apex at Dawn
  7. Product or collection

    Art deco was the last time cars and buildings agreed.

    For about fifteen years in the 1930s, the people drawing cars and the people drawing skyscrapers were chasing the same idea: speed as a shape. Streamlining, stepped geometry, sunbursts, chrome lines going nowhe…

  8. Product or collection

    Art for a wall that gets used.

    A garage is not a small living room. It is colder, damper, dustier, the lighting is overhead and unkind, and the wall is usually breeze block or bare plaster. Five pictures made for it, and the practical part t…

  9. Product or collection

    Canvas is not just paper with texture.

    Canvas changes two things: it takes the glazing away, and it puts a weave under the picture. The first is why it exists. The second is why it suits some of the collection and actively damages the rest, which is…

  10. Product or collection

    Car art for a room that has enough going on.

    Most car prints are loud, and in a lot of houses that is the problem rather than the appeal. These four are the quiet option: one continuous ink line each, warm cream paper, one accent colour, and a great deal …

  11. Product or collection

    Car art, and which kind you actually want.

    Twenty-eight pictures in six visual languages. They are not variations on one idea, they are six different arguments about what a car is: a shape, a machine, a memory, a mood. This page is the map, so you can g…

  12. Product or collection

    Car blueprints, drawn as drawings.

    A blueprint is a way of looking at a car that a photograph cannot manage: it shows the parts you never see, in the order an engineer thinks about them. Four of them here, white linework on deep cyanotype blue, …

  13. Product or collection

    Car gifts for men, from a shop with no men's range.

    This is one of the most searched phrases in the category, and it is worth being honest about what it is. It is a shopping category, not a taste. Nothing about liking cars is male, and dividing a catalogue that …

  14. Product or collection

    Deco Grand Tourer

    A streamlined 1930s grand tourer in full Art Deco splendour - gold, black and emerald, chrome speed lines and a bold geometric sunburst.

    Deco Grand Tourer
  15. Product or collection

    Deco Metropolis

    An elegant coupe before stepped Art Deco skyscrapers and a stylised moon. Midnight blue, gold and cream.

    Deco Metropolis
  16. Product or collection

    Deco Riviera

    An open roadster on the corniche above a geometric sea and a distant liner. 1930s travel-poster glamour.

    Deco Riviera
  17. Product or collection

    Endurance

    Dusk on the long straight. A 1960s prototype, twin headlamps blazing, settles in for the night hours.

    Endurance
  18. Product or collection

    Grand prix art, and the licence question.

    A print of a real car in a real season's colours is licensed merchandise: the marks and the liveries belong to the people who own them, and a licence fee sits inside the price. We do not hold a licence, so this…

  19. Product or collection

    Kanjo Glow

    Top deck, empty multi-storey, 1am. Sodium light and teal shadow on a nineties coupe.

    Kanjo Glow
  20. Product or collection

    Midnight Expressway

    Tail-light ribbons sweep toward the skyline from the top of the elevated road. Night drive, no destination.

    Midnight Expressway
  21. Product or collection

    Neon Rain

    A low coupe on a rain-slicked street, magenta and cyan smeared in the wet. The city hums.

    Neon Rain
  22. Product or collection

    One line, and nowhere to hide.

    A silhouette removes paint, chrome, badges, light and detail, and leaves only proportion. That is why it is the hardest kind of car drawing to get right, and why a good one is recognisable from across a room wh…

  23. Product or collection

    One question, one answer.

    The problem with a grid of car gifts is that everything on it looks plausible, so nothing is chosen. This page does the opposite. Work out which of five things you actually know about the person and follow that…

  24. Product or collection

    Paint Shop

    Upload a photo of your car, choose an art style, preview it free, and we print the transformed artwork.

    Paint Shop
  25. Product or collection

    Pit Lane, 1955

    Mechanics swarm a stripped racer under warm lamplight - oil cans, stacked tyres, quiet heroics.

    Pit Lane, 1955
  26. Product or collection

    Pixel Night City

    An 8-bit coupe on a neon street at night - magenta, cyan and pixel rain. Arcade-era cool.

    Pixel Night City
  27. Product or collection

    Pixel Rally Stage

    A 16-bit rally car mid-jump on a forest stage, dust and dithered shadow. Racing-game nostalgia.

    Pixel Rally Stage
  28. Product or collection

    Pixel Roadster

    A 16-bit roadster on an empty desert highway under a big banded sky. Retro road-trip joy.

    Pixel Roadster
  29. Product or collection

    Pixel Sunset Run

    A 16-bit sports coupe on a coastal highway at sunset. Crisp pixels, a vibrant arcade palette, pure nostalgia.

    Pixel Sunset Run
  30. Product or collection

    Racing posters, drawn rather than licensed.

    Five pictures about the parts of motor racing that actually stay with people: the light, the dust, the noise you can almost hear, and the hour before anyone starts. None of them is a photograph, and none of the…