About Us

Penton Racing Products history in the ignition business, goes back to 1969, when John Penton decided that a breaker point ignition was just not suitable for off road competition because of the dirt and water the riders would encounter. Mr. Penton learned about a Spanish company by the name of Motoplat, who had been making electronic ignitions since the early 1960's, and were being used on the Spanish motorcycles.

During one of his trips to Europe to visit KTM who was building the Penton motorcycles, he visited Motoplat and found that they did make an electronic ignition for the Sachs engines that were being used in the Pentons. Once the systems were tested, a decision was made to use the Motoplat ignitions exclusively on the Penton motorcycles and to offer them to the riders of Husqvarna motorcycles as well.

In the mid 1970's, Penton Imports/Hi Point Racing Products, began to offer the Motoplat electronic ignitions for the Japanese motocross machinery, and thus created a whole new market for the aftermarket ignition business.

During this period, Penton Imports also began to offer dynamic testing processes and replacement for the Motoplat ignition components. Penton Racing Products still offers dynamic testing for off road ignitions today.

In the early 1990's, Motoplat S.A., went out of business and Penton Imports began to work with the German Company PVL Electronics GmbH. PVL had only been producing ignitions for the kart and motorcycle market for approximately a year, and since that time, our companies have worked together to expand the product lines for both of us.

In 2005, we began to work with a second German Company, MZ-B Vertriebs, which was making external flywheel, replacement ignitions for mostly vintage off road equipment. In the recent years, our companies have expanded the available applications significantly.

The ownership of the company was transfered from John Penton to his daughter and nephew at the end of 2005 and was moved into a facility that has been the family businesses since the 1930's and is across the street from John’s home.

Penton Racing Products works hard to supply replacement ignitions for many, many off road applications. If we don’t have something listed for your machine, please feel free to call us and we’ll see if we can provide you with a system that will fill in your needs. We have a complete machine shop in our facility and often will create new kits if the owner will send us the original ignition’s magneto or the engine’s bottom end.