Zen GaragePetrol. To most of us, it’s pretty boring. We chuck it in our cars, put our foot down, some stuff happens and we have fun. Although some of you are probably quite into it, I’m sure. Me personally? I’ve never given it much thought. I accidentally put E10 in my R33 Skyline a few years ago and found out the hard way that it didn’t like it. Especially when going up hills. Ever since, I’ve stuck to 98. That’s pretty much the extent of my petrol knowledge and experience.
Spotted on the way to the venue.
So when BP invited Zen to the launch event of their new fuels, I was looking forward to learning a bit more about petrol, which I did! The event was held at a warehouse space owned by Lindsay Fox. If you’ve ever seen one of those trucks that say “you are passing another Fox” then you will be familiar with his company, Linfox. What you may not know is that Lindsay is a complete car nut! As soon as we walked into the space I saw at least 4 cars that I had only seen in photos, and to be honest, never expected to be 20 centimeters away from. His collection is absolutely incredible, but more on that in a bit.
After collecting my jaw off the floor, we were taken upstairs for the presentation of the new fuels. I was fortunate enough to have fellow Zen contributor and awesome photographer, Alex Affat with me, so he started snapping away when the presentation started. Shane Jacobson (from TopGear Australia) was hosting the event and after a few jokes, introduced us to the BP professionals (Andy Holmes, President of BP Australasia, Rachel Johnston, Regional Technology Manager and Garry Whitefield, Fuels Technician Expert). We were then shown the ad that you will most likely be seeing on tv right now. The ad explained about the new petrol and how it eats dirt in engines and cleans it out. Pretty cool!
Shane, Andy, Rachel and Garry
According to BP, the petrol (which won’t cost any more than the old petrol) has cleaning additives in the way of “molecules that grab onto the dirt and harmlessly burn away the bad stuff”. It will take 1-2 tanks to clean your engine, at which point it will run smoother and more efficiently. The new fuel also took five years to develop, 50,00 hours and over 1.6 million kilometers of testing. BP also said that it has been tested in older cars and optimized for new cars, with Shane remarking that he wouldn’t have to use fuel additives with his old Holden anymore. That’s pretty cool! 
I honestly can’t say I knew all that much about petrol, but after being there, I now know a little bit and this new fuel sounds pretty great. I’m definitely looking forward to trying it in my car!
The night was then rounded out with a ridiculously nice dinner, cooked by Adam D’sylva and served to us while we were sitting in the middle of a room lined with some of Lindsay’s cars. Amazing, food, amazing cars, literally a dream come true!
I could go on about the cars, the food, and the people I met, but I think that old saying about pictures being worth a thousand words rings true here, so I’ll end it with a question, one that I spent a while dwelling on myself – which car would you have out of all of these? For me, I’d take that Mercedes 190E in a heartbeat.
Alex chucked some of the new petrol in his BRZ
The new BP Ultimate fuel is already in petrol stations, so it should be pretty easy to get it in your car and see how it goes!
If you have any more questions leave them in the comments below or tweet at me @pikalew
Thanks to BP for inviting us to the event!