Engen is using fashion to spotlight South Africa’s motoring culture, combining upcycled materials, local craftsmanship and community engagement in a new brand activation.
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Engen is taking its Xtreme lubricants brand beyond the workshop with Engen Xtreme Kouture, a fashion collection that transforms discarded lubricant packaging and recycled corporate clothing into garments inspired by South Africa’s mechanics, spinners and motoring enthusiasts.
Unveiled at Heat on the Street at Kwamagesh Spinning Arena earlier this month, the collection brings together automotive culture, sustainable design and fashion, using materials including lubricant bottles, bottle caps and repurposed workwear.
The initiative forms part of Engen Xtreme’s Beyond Oil platform, which explores recycling and opportunities to create value beyond the brand’s core products.
“What we normally regard as waste can become a resource when imagination is applied to it,” says Melissa Graham, Engen Lubricants marketing manager.
“The aim wasn’t to make garage clothing look fashionable. It’s to acknowledge that the garage already has fashion, identity and attitude of its own. The collection turns the spotlight back onto the communities that inspired it.”
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Turning motoring culture into design
Engen commissioned Chicago-based South African artist, fashion designer and activist Carlo Gibson to develop the collection, drawing on his work in sustainability, recycling and upcycling.
Rather than imposing an entirely new aesthetic on the motoring community, the designs take cues from the visual identities already established around customised cars, spinning, tuning and workshop culture.
“Car culture has always had fashion in it,” says Gibson. “The way people customise a car, the colours they choose, the stance, the wheels, the detailing — it is all self-expression. Street fashion works in much the same way. You take familiar things and make them unmistakably yours.”
The collection recognises mechanics, spinners, tuners, shop stewards and petrolheads as cultural influences in their own right, positioning their style and creativity as the starting point for the designs.
For Engen, the approach offers a way to connect its lubricants brand with the people who use and identify with its products, while creating a platform for South African automotive culture beyond traditional product marketing.
Upcycling meets local skills development
The project also incorporates a skills-development component. A fashion design intern worked alongside Gibson throughout the garment-creation phase, gaining practical experience in developing and producing a collection.
Local seamstresses supported the manufacturing process, creating opportunities to invest in craftsmanship, skills and livelihoods alongside the creative concept.
Gibson says sustainability in fashion is not about finding a perfect solution, but making more considered choices and extending the life of materials and garments.
“Fashion has spent years convincing us that newness is the point. Maybe the more radical idea now is longevity,” he says.
For Engen, the project broadens the sustainability conversation beyond the disposal of lubricant packaging to consider the wider ecosystem surrounding its business, including workshops, independent mechanics, communities and the automotive sector.
“Sustainability has to work in the real world,” says Graham. “That means looking at the entire ecosystem surrounding the brand: lubricant packaging, workshops, mechanics, communities, education, waste and the long-term sustainability of the independent automotive sector itself.”
Brand engagement beyond the product
The choice of Heat on the Street as the launch platform reflects the connection between spinning and personal expression. Both automotive customisation and fashion provide ways for people to communicate identity through colour, design and attention to detail.
Graham says the initiative builds on Engen Xtreme’s focus on performance, precision and durability, while strengthening its association with South African motoring communities.
“Nothing embodies being proudly South African quite like Engen Xtreme lubricants, and there is no more natural synergy for the brand than the vibrant and performance-driven spinning community,” she says.
The brand’s positioning, “Engen Xtreme. Xtremely South African Oil for SA’s Pros”, is intended to reflect a broader focus on the people behind the industry, not only the products they use.
“Engen Xtreme Kouture is about putting mechanics on the mood board, putting spinners in the fashion conversation, turning discarded materials into something desirable and investing in the skills and hands that make motoring culture possible,” Graham says.
The collection will feature at further events, collaborations and activations across South Africa during the remainder of 2026 and into 2027, extending the initiative beyond its initial unveiling.
For Engen, Xtreme Kouture creates another platform to connect brand identity with local culture, while exploring how waste materials, creative collaboration and community participation can support a broader brand proposition.
