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Moto Paton - History

Sixty years of Racing DNA

The '50s

Paton was born in 1958, when Giuseppe Pattoni and Lino Tonti, just after the closing of the Mondial Racing Department, decided to develop a racing bike giving up their liquidation in exchange for the racing material left on their shelves.

The first version of the engine 125cc, revisited and improved with a dual overhead camshaft instead of the Mondial single shaft, was shown to the press with the double name of Paton-Mondial. But the Cavaliere Boselli, patron of Mondial, in order not to fail the “Patto di Astensione” to which he took part, ordered the cancellation of any connection to the Mondial.

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Paton_Storia-Anni50_1958-TT-Mike-Hailwood-Paton-125-Smokie
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Paton_Storia-Anni60_1967-Fred-Stevens-su-Paton-BL2-Campionato-Mondiale-500cc
Paton_Storia-Anni60_1969-Angelo-Bergamonti-e-Giacomo-Agostini-Cervia-Campionato-Italiano-500cc
Paton_Storia-Anni60_Angelo-Bergamonti_Monza-Campionato-Mondiale-500cc-1967
Paton_Storia-Anni60_Angelo-Bergamonti-Circuito-del-Montjuich-Campionato-Mondiale-500cc-1967
Paton_Storia-Anni60_Angelo-Bergamonti-Campione-Italiano-1967-classe-500cc

The 60’s

After the great win of ’58 – the young Mike Hailwood, on the Paton 125, both on their first appearance at the TT, gained the important seventh place on Mountain – Paton started the 60s at full speed. Tonti’s abandonment, hired in Bianchi to carry on his job on the two-cylinder 250cc motorcycles, leads Pattoni not to give up and improve even more the project, pushing himself closer to the solution of the 250cc dual camshaft.

The BIC Paton, born in 1962, confirms the goodness of Pattoni’s project with the 3rd place in TT, in the Lightweight category, conquered by Alberto Pagani only two years after his debut.

These are years of development for Paton and Pattoni, bringing the engine from the existing 250cc to 350cc and finally to 500cc.

The Paton BIC 500 was already ahead of its time: distribution driven by a central gear train, four valves per cylinder, and cassette gearbox, everything was born out of Pattoni’s and Marchesani’s minds, their intuition, and their technical skills. Every day, they both used to work in Giorgio Pianta’s production workshop and every night, were wholeheartedly committed to Paton, working on the bikes.

Exactly with the 500 models, in 1967, Bergamonti wins the title of Campione d’Italia preceding Agostini and his official MV Agusta.

The 70’s

In the ’70s, the motorbikes were still in a development phase, also thanks to the Belletti frame; Gallina gained noticeable placing in the 500cc Italian Championship, getting second place in 1971, third place in both 1970 and 1972.

1973 is the year of the new Bimota frames debut, with which Toracca gets third place in the Italian Championship the following year.

To keep up with the competitors, “il Pep” – how Pattoni was nicknamed by his friends and coworkers – pensions the 4 stroke engine in favor of the 2 stroke engine and a young Virginio Ferrari helps developing this new solution as a team coworker together with a more mature Toracca.

The work to develop the two-stroke engine is unstoppable and the hard-work Pattoni put into, gave life to, in 1976, the first four-cylinder V engine with a single crank shaft; this is the same project used later on by Honda for their world champion four-cylinder engines.

The new Paton creature, the V90 BM4 – a 90 degrees V four-cylinder engine – with a frame developed by Tamburini, doesn’t lead to the desired results: the finalizing of the new 2 stroke engine turns out to be hard and Giuseppe Pantoni decides to dedicate himself to the development together with his son Roberto, giving up the participation to the World Championship and showing up to just one race per year to verify the progression of the work on the new engine and frame developed by Segoni.

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Paton_Storia-Anni70_Gallina-e-Bonalumi-Team-Paton-Completo-Modena-1972
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Paton_Storia-Anni70_Virginio-Ferrari-Giuseppe-e-Roberto-Pattoni-con-le-Paton-BM3_Imola-1975
Paton_Storia-Anni70_Roberto-Gallina-Paton-500-BL3-1970
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Paton_Storia-Anni80_Vittorio-Scatola_Misano-Adriatico_Campionato-Europeo-classe-500cc_1988
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Paton_Storia-Anni80_Eric-Saul_Test-Mugello_Paton-500-C2_1984

The 80’s

In 1983 the Paton C1 500 model is shown, an important step for the Italian factory since it represents the first model on which dad Giuseppe and son Roberto worked together helped by the frame maker Claudio Colombo, who from that moment will follow the work on the Grand Prix motorbike frames until 1999 and, later on, he will also make the frames for the Re-Edition of the 1968 MY Paton BIC 500.

The worth of the technical selection will be confirmed by the results obtained in the 500 European Championship of 1988, the third-place of Vittorio Scatola. That season, in particular, will be remembered as the first moving victory of a Paton in an international race, that was gotten in Misano.

The 90’s

The development work to follow the direct competitors makes it possible for Paton to replace the 90 degrees V 4 cylinder with another 115 degrees V 4 cylinder engine, but the performance gap seen in the race leads to putting that model aside in favour of a 70 degrees V engine, forefather of the latest generation of two-stroke engines. It takes Il Pep and Roberto one entire year to design this model.

Pattoni and his son were struggling with the high complexity of using carburettors inside the narrow V engine, but just to confirm the fame of Paton, Oguma – president of the Japanese HRC – personally sent them an array of 36mm carburettors specifically produced for the Honda motorbikes ready to race in Grand Prix.

The new model’s debut was in 1994 and the following year, with the arrival of the French rider Jeandat, the bike started to show its real value putting itself immediately under the official bikes. Because of an serious accident during the warm-up of Donington GP, Jeandat unluckily couldn’t show up at the startline and the season closes without much satisfaction.

1997 was a hard year for Pattoni’s family: IRTA and DORNA denied them the inscription to the World Championship due to the low competitiveness of the motorbike; Paton official team won’t be present in a world race paddock after 39 years. Only Giuseppe and Roberto Pattoni’s determination makes it possible for them to actually participate in the race with some wild cards, completely paying the costs of an abroad trip by themselves.

The development of the bikes doesn’t stop: Luca Cadalora, sure of doing tests, reports the optimal performance in Paton’s pit.

Unluckily, on 30th August 1999, while returning from a private testing session before the Italian GP in Imola, Giuseppe Pantoni passed away.

A strong will, the spirit of sacrifice and talent are just some of the qualities that made it possible for Pattoni to continue following his dream, qualities that il Pep has fully transmitted to Roberto and that we can find in the DNA of every single Paton bike produced in the Italian factory.

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Paton_Storia-Anni90_Paolo-Tessari_Mugello_Campionato-Mondiale-500cc_1999
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Paton_Storia-Anni90_Jean-Pierre-Jeandat_Campionato-Mondiale-500cc_1996
Paton_Storia-Anni90_Vittorio-Scatola_Campionato-Mondiale-500cc_1994
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Paton_Storia-Anni2000_Vladimir-Catscka_Campionato-Mondiale-500cc_2001

The 2000s

Roberto, shocked by the passing of his father, doesn’t lose himself and continues the development of the bike showing the PG500 R that participates at the World Championship of 2000 with Paolo Tessari. His 15th place in the German GP will be the last World Champion Race in the history of Paton.

In 2001, thanks to the Cagiva frame with which Kocinsky won Australia GP, the French racer Gimbert showed himself in the evolution of the PG500 R, the PG500 RC model. Unfortunately, Gimbert in Donington, after the important lap times registered during the tests, fell and the numerous fractures put a stop to his race and the rest of the season.

Times have changed, the arrival of the expensive MotoGP 1000cc 4 stroke forces Roberto to put an end to Paton racing career, after more than 40 years of history in worldwide motorbikes races.

The last Paton 2 stroke highlight was in 2007, the 100-year Isle of Man race edition. Steve Linsdell, the veteran of the Tourist Trophy with more than seventy entries, asks and obtains the permission to participate in it with one 500 2 stroke GP model. He needs to retire mid-race, but the roar of the motorbike blows people’s minds. PG500RC will be the last 500 2 stroke entry in a worldwide race.

From 2016, Paton – the brand, the project, the team – will be acquired by Advanced Group Srl, owner of the SC-Project brand.

The Paton S1-R Lightweight debuts and officially wins at TT 2017 with Michael Rutter. The following year, 2018, will be remembered as an incredible year: Michael Dunlop wins his 18th TT on an S1-R Lightweight and Paton puts 5 motorbikes in the first 6 positions! 1rst place Dunlop – 3rd Rutter – 4th Bonetti – 5th Thompson – 6th Lougher.