Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in Volume 7 of B.H. Magazine, order your copy now.
B.H. Magazine: Who is Pat James, what is 2PJZ, and why should Boss Hunting readers follow you?
Pat James: I'm a car nut who grew up in a family that had absolutely no interest in cars. Everything I learned came from somewhere else – from Gran Turismo, Fast and Furious, car magazines and absorbing everything I could about Japanese tuning culture from my early teens. Cars were this whole world you could fall into, and the deeper you went, the richer it got.
The other part of who I am is a journalist. I worked as a reporter, moved into media advisory, then spent a year at the Australian Grand Prix Corporation in Melbourne. All of it was about telling stories and understanding what makes people pay attention. 2PJZ is what happens when those two worlds collide.
It's a storytelling platform at the intersection of car culture, my personal ownership journey, and the kind of automotive content I actually wanted to watch but couldn't find. I'm honest about everything – what you see is exactly what you get, and in a world saturated with people constantly selling you something, that actually stands for something.
You've recently gone full-time after almost two years of daily posting. How did you stay motivated in those early days?
The promise I made myself was simple: post one video every single day, no matter what, for a full year, and see where I ended up. I didn't announce it publicly. I just made the commitment and honoured it. I posted for probably three or four months before anything started to gain traction.
There were plenty of nights when I thought no one was interested in seeing videos about my old BMW E36. The lesson I carry from that period is that it doesn't matter what car you have. Your story is everything. What kept me going was a fear more powerful than any ambition. The idea of never knowing – that frightens me. And that's still the fuel now.
A lot of your content is serialised, which gives people a reason to come back. Was that a deliberate strategy, or something you naturally fell into?
Completely deliberate. I noticed pretty early that the creators doing the best work were treating their content like television. People will keep coming back to something with a narrative thread far more reliably than standalone content. The two series I'm most proud of are 26 By 26 and It's Not Mine.
26 By 26 is an episode dedicated to each of the cars I've owned – it gives people personal context and shows that I've lived it across many different cars. It's Not Mine is my press car series. I never take talking points from a brand, and no one tells me what to say. I form my own view every single time, even when that honesty isn't flattering to the car. That rule will never change.
At what point did going full-time stop feeling like a risk and start feeling like the obvious next step?
It never stopped feeling like a risk. It still feels like a risk now, a month and a half in. I'd built 2PJZ into one of the fastest-growing automotive platforms in Australia while working full-time. I kept wondering what I could do with my time and energy if I wasn't splitting it. But knowing something is the obvious next step and actually jumping are two completely different things. I gave myself a savings buffer and made the call. Now I'm in a position where I have to make it work, which is making me work harder than I ever have.
You've recently become a Michelin ambassador. How does the creator business actually work, and was there anything you had to figure out the hard way?
Having a brand like Michelin come on board is huge. I've run Michelin tyres on my cars for years, so it's a real partnership, not a transactional one. That distinction matters enormously to me.
In the creator business, you are the product and the personal brand is the asset. What makes it valuable is trust. The moment you compromise that for a payday, you're chipping away at the very thing that made you worth anything in the first place. There's no guide on how to price yourself, no guide on building relationships in an industry as small and close-knit as the Australian car scene. I've had deals I regret. But that's what the early days of any business look like. You pay the tuition and you don't make the same mistakes twice.
You're also building on YouTube. How important is owning your audience there compared to short-form platforms?
Long-form and short-form serve completely different needs. It takes a new audience member roughly seven hours of watching your content to truly feel like they know and trust you. A twenty-minute YouTube video cuts that time down dramatically while letting stories breathe. But beyond the numbers, it's about longevity. If I ever want to move into longer series work or television – which is something I want to do – YouTube is where that credibility gets built. You can't shortcut that.
Australian motoring media has historically been quite straight – road test, spec sheet, verdict. You're doing something different. Was that a deliberate break, or just the result of being yourself?
Mostly the result of being myself. But an informed version of being myself. I grew up reading Wheels and Motor, and I have a real love for automotive journalism. But here's the honest reality: I don't think most Australians could name a single currently working Australian motoring journalist. They could rattle off their five favourite automotive creators without thinking about it. That's not a judgment on the quality of the journalism. It's just where attention lives now. I was bored of reading car reviews that all read the same. No personality, no real perspective, no honesty that felt like it came from somewhere real. I take press cars I'm interested in, form my own view completely independently, and say what I think. I'm not very good at hiding how I feel about something. That turns out to be the thing people respond to most.
Where did the name Stay Driven come from, and what was the inspiration behind it?
Stay Driven was the sign-off I used at the end of my YouTube videos. It stuck because it felt true to something. We're all staying driven towards something – a business, a relationship, a build, a dream car we're working to afford. It felt like a phrase with meaning beyond the car world.
The brand came from personal frustration. I love car clothing but I was sick of wearing things that made me look like I was fifteen years old. I wanted something that showed cars were part of my identity in any setting. I looked for it for years, but couldn't find it, so I decided to make it myself. The goal was never to build another influencer merch brand but to create a streetwear movement defined by its community.
You recently ran a cars and coffee meet-up in Melbourne, and people showed up in a big way. At what point did you realise this had become a community, not just an audience?
The first event. January 2025. That was the moment. We promoted it off one or two Instagram Reels, and 300 cars showed up. I'd been posting for about eight months and had no idea what to expect. But the part that got me was the people. Person after person came up and thanked me – not just for putting the event on, but for trying to make the car community a better place. Every video, every meet, every piece of content is in service of making the car scene more welcoming, more honest, more worth being a part of. When strangers start telling you unprompted that they feel that happening, something has gone right. An audience watches. A community belongs. That morning in January was the first time I truly felt the difference.
Finally, describe your dream two-car garage.
This is genuinely cruel. An R34 GTR V-Spec N-Ur in Bayside Blue. That's my reason for working hard. And a Porsche 997.2 GT3 RS. The 3.8 litre. As close to a race car as you can legally drive anywhere.
Follow Pat on Instagram @2PJZ.
