Car guys get a bad rap when it comes to being seen as “green.” The public at large sees us as a group of people who would love nothing more than to suckle the last drop of oil out of the earth to in order to be able to do burnouts in front of church that much longer. However, in many ways, car guys are the original environmentalists.

What person do you know threatens his bank account and relationships over recycling? Definitely not Mr. Toms shoe wearing compost maker down the block. He’ll toss his compost pile, and everything nature friendly, right down the drain if they slightly inconvenience him, but not car guys. We will go to absurd lengths just to keep our cars on the road. Restoration is nothing more than a nicer word for recycling. And to help keep our cars on the road a little longer, as well as the resources needed to run them, Valvoline has released its line of NextGen oil; the first commercially viable oil that uses 50% recycled oil.

Valvoline recently invited Bullz-Eye down to North Carolina to showcase this new product, and how it is being used in everything from the car in your driveway to the cars on racetrack.

When you hear “recycled” oil you might be under the assumption that it is inferior to new oil. However. Valvoline explains that it is the additives in the oil that get used up during its lifetime, and that the actual oil is fine. If you take the spent additives out of the oil, and do some refining, you get the same quality product as you had the first time around, but you didn’t have to drill it out of the ground again. All that needs to be added after that are some new additives and its ready for your car once again.

To prove this point, they gave their product to Roush Racing to use in their NASCAR cars. Over the past year, Roush has been testing and using NextGen in both it and its customers’ cars. This expansive facility nestled into North Carolina is wholly built for speed, so any product that does not help them achieve this goal would be removed, especially the engine oil. Valvoline NextGen was proven plenty capable though, and has been used with much success in both NASCAR and the Nationwide Series. If motor oil can survive the tortuous conditions a NASCAR engine experiences, it can resoundingly handle the stresses of your daily commute.

Many people may think that the environmental bandwagon passed a long time ago, but Valvoline isn’t doing this for its reputation, but to make a genuinely good product because it wants to. Unlike its competitors, it is a stand-alone oil manufacturer, which means they do not drill oil out of the ground and use some to make oil and sell the rest for other products. Their mission is to only make the best motor oil money can by. Therefore, it is not in their best interests to keep drilling for more oil either.

Additionally, recent technological advancements and market changes has made a project like this commercially viable. Valvoline stresses they would not put anything out in the market that isn’t ready for any car at anytime, anywhere. Also, they would want to use more repurposed oil in the product, but there are currently not enough vendors selling it to up the percentage past 50%. However, they stress that once the oil is available for sale, they will start adding more used oil to the mixture.

Valvoline NextGen is engineered to be better for the environment, not better for Valvoline’s public image. With recent advancements in technology, and help from Roush Racing, you can have the protection that Valvoline offers in its entire product, while also being green. So if anyone tries to tell you how terrible your muscle car is for the ozone layer, let him or her now that even your oil is recycled. Then, do a nature friendly burnout, because we might be green, but we will always be car guys.