We’re Petrol Threads — a small family-run automotive clothing business based in Pitt Town, NSW, in the Hawkesbury District. We’ve been designing and printing clothing for car enthusiasts since 2007. Long-time customers may remember us as Shamrock Shirts. The name changed; the obsession with cars, original artwork and doing the work ourselves didn’t.
It started in 2007
Petrol Threads started life as Shamrock Shirts in 2007. We started life as the official supplier of Top Gear merchandise in Australia, retailing the iconic 'I am the Stig' t-shirt. This was to be a partnership that lasted several years, and firmly ingrained Top Gear into our hearts. It was a memorable way to get started, but over time we realised the part we enjoyed most was creating our own work for the Australian car community.
That shift changed the business. Instead of simply putting existing logos on clothing, we began drawing our own automotive designs in-house — cars, engines, tracks and the details that make enthusiasts stop and look twice. The range grew around the things we genuinely liked: Japanese performance cars, Australian classics, 4WDs, motorsport and the occasional workshop joke.
Shamrock Shirts became Petrol Threads
As the business became more focused on original automotive artwork, the Shamrock Shirts name no longer felt like the right fit. Petrol Threads better described what we had become: an automotive clothing brand built around the cars and car culture we’ve spent years drawing, printing and talking about.
Why we draw the cars ourselves
Car people notice details. The proportions, lights, wheels and little model-specific cues are often the whole reason someone loves a particular car. That’s why our automotive artwork is drawn in-house rather than generated by AI. We want each design to come from somebody who has actually looked closely at the subject and understood what makes it recognisable.
Printed to order in Pitt Town, NSW
We don’t keep a warehouse full of pre-printed shirts. Our garments are printed to order at our Pitt Town studio using commercial-grade DTF transfers, which gives us control over the finish and means we can keep a broad range of designs available without mass-producing them in advance.
A good design is wasted on a shirt nobody wants to wear. We use AS Colour garments because the fit, fabric and construction meet the standard we want for Petrol Threads. Our classic tees are heavyweight 100% combed cotton with a regular fit, and we choose the same way across the rest of the range: start with a garment we’d be happy to wear ourselves, then put our artwork on it.
Still a small Australian Business
Nearly two decades after that first shirt, Petrol Threads is still a small family business in the Hawkesbury. We still create the artwork ourselves, print the clothing ourselves and care about the details that leave the studio. The catalogue is bigger and the name on the door has changed, but the way we approach the work hasn’t.
If you’re into cars, there’s a good chance there’s something here that means more to you than just another graphic on a T-shirt. That’s the kind of clothing we want to keep making.
Welcome to Petrol Threads.