Penrite Oil is a 100% Australian-owned, family-founded mechanical Oils and Lubrications company, that was founded in Melbourne. Les Mecoles, who was a student at a Melbourne High school, began his commercial career by importing and distributing oils from other countries for brands like Shell, Trogon, and other companies that were operating at that point in time. He launched Penrite on his sixteenth birthday in 1926, and his school notebooks were always filled with reports on his business performance and technical information about oils as he was brainstorming his own products.

While Les was importing and selling oils, he was hands on with brewing his own blends of oils in his families home. He would Blend different oil combinations on his mother's kitchen stovetop of their family home in St Kilda, and then use a wheelbarrow to make deliveries of his oil blends that he sold around Melbourne every week.

Being from a humble home, Les didn't have much of a budget when he got started and he actually sold his prized leather jacket in order to fund his first batch of oil that he produced. Les went from working at a service station and selling oil on the side to building the brand over the years. Through world wars, great depressions, and a host of other challenges growing businesses experience the brand only grew stronger over time. Les became an enthusiast of motorsport over the years, and he became committed to manufacturing high-performance oils, grease and lubricants suitable for motorcycles and high-performance vehicles.