An automotive media and product company based in Ocala, Florida. We publish stories, we build software, and we make free tools for the people who keep the car and truck world moving.
Pistons & Ink LLC was founded by Chris Hamilton, who has spent more than twenty years in automotive media. Alongside running Pistons & Ink, Chris serves as Editor-in-Chief of the automotive division at Engaged Media, the publisher behind Street Trucks, Diesel World, Tread Magazine, DRIVE, EV Builders Guide, Tesla Trends and Motortopia. That is a working editor's seat at the center of the truck and enthusiast world, and it shapes everything this company makes.
Pistons & Ink is where that experience gets built into products of our own. Every item in our garage started as a real problem we ran into in the industry: a show organizer drowning in spreadsheets, a parts brand with news and nowhere to publish it, a builder doing math on a napkin that deserved a proper tool. We would rather build the fix than write about the problem.
Automotive Files is our documentary series on YouTube, publishing a new short documentary every weekday. Each episode digs into the people, brands and machines that built car culture, from the Hurst shifter story to the GMC Syclone, researched from the historical record and illustrated only with properly licensed photography. The Motortopia podcast carries the same idea in audio form, a monthly conversation for the enthusiast community.
PistonsPR is our press release publishing service for the automotive aftermarket, and it is free. Any company in the industry can submit a release and reach the community without a wire-service bill. Approved releases publish on pistonsandink.com, and the best of each day goes out in the Daily Five newsletter. It exists because the aftermarket runs on small and mid-size companies whose news deserves the same shelf space as the biggest brands.
All-in-one event management for car, truck and motorcycle shows. Online registration, a unified 100-point judging system, ticket sales, sponsor tools and a public directory of shows across the country. Built for grassroots organizers first.
Eleven free calculators and references for builders: tire sizing, gear ratios, wheel offset, compression, carb and injector sizing, wiring guides and more. Every data table is researched from real sources. Where the data does not exist, the tool says so instead of guessing.
A free directory of automotive content creators. Shops, detailers, photographers and builders list themselves, and clients contact them directly. No middleman and no cut, because the directory works better when it stays honest.
A video network covering shows and builds, built to give events and creators a bigger stage and give enthusiasts one place to watch what the community is producing.
Audience voting software for contests and judged events, including Truck of the Year style competitions where the crowd picks the winner.
Classic vehicle rentals for weddings, photo shoots and events, because some days call for arriving in something with chrome.
A few rules run through everything with our name on it. Data gets verified or it does not ship. Our wire color finder covers fewer vehicles than its competitors on purpose: those are the ones with charts confirmed from installer sources, and the gaps are labeled as gaps. Photography gets licensed or it does not run. Every image in our documentaries carries a verified public domain or Creative Commons license and an on-screen credit. Free means free. The toolbox, the directory listings and press release publishing cost the community nothing, because a stronger community is the whole point.
We are a small company and we like it that way. It keeps the work close to the people it is for: the organizer setting up cones at dawn, the shop owner leaving a build video on the waiting room TV, the kid measuring backspacing for a first set of wheels.
Working on something the community should know about?