The History of
Pakelo Lubricants


90 years of Made in Italy
engine oils
(and much more)

90 years of Know How Made in Italy

We’ve been treasuring the lessons of the past, never breaking eyecontact with the future.

If today we are a Made in Italy independent lubricant manufacturer, with business in Italy and +40 foreign markets, we owe it to the people who made Pakelo grow up during these years.

First of all Italo Rino Polacco (the founder) and his passion for engines, forwarded to his sons and daughter Elio, Cecilia and Giuseppe who, driven by their entrepreneurship in 1960s turned the family business, a small shop selling oils, in something more: a Company that produces 100% Made in Italy lubricants.

Here is the million-dollar question we are always asked to: what does “Pakelo” word mean?

Actually, legend says that as a little child one of the founder’s grandaughters couldn’t spell its own surname “Polacco” properly. Everytime she sorts of bubbled “Pachelo”. Truth to be told, the story of the Pakelo name is pretty mysterious and we generally classify it as “family secret”.

Cars, motorcycles, trucks, earthmoving machineries, industrial systems, boats (pick one): if you have anything to do with combustion and gears, you would have the attention of Pakelo. This is the reason why we don’t make car oils only, but we work in so many application fields that it’s probably better for you to check them clicking below.

Since the beginning our Company has been focused on continuous R&D, to always offer high-tech oils and greases. Do not forget that thanks to the early creation of the analysis lab, today we have a huge data and knowledge asset dating back to the 70s. In this way we can guarantee an accurate interpretation of the results obtained during our analysis. Do you need a consultancy? Test us!

Nowadays our Pakelo Lab is one of the reference lubricant-specific laboratories in Europe. Main activities are diagnosis on used oils and quality check. If you want to learn more about lubricant analysis and the tools in our Pakelo Lab, visit our Service page.

Cars, Motorbikes, Trucks, Tractors, Earth Moving Machineries, Industrial Machineries: we’re into every single piece of mechanics which needs to be lubricated.

After years under Elio and Giuseppe’s leadership, in 2013 the management of the Company passed to the next generation: the sons took over the parents’ place and Alberto, Aldo and Rino began leading the Company towards a new era. A transition that represented a boost to the future internationalization of the Company for us.

But, what do we love the most in our work? We consider ourselves lubricant specialists and as such we love getting in the game to solve problems, because sometimes the right engine oil or transmission oil can make the difference.

We love adventures and for this reason we collaborate with racing teams to develop (whether it is an oil for cars or an oil for motorcycles) custom products with them giving a boost to their performance. Are you part of a racing team and you can’t wait to test our expertise? Contact us for a tailor-made consultancy.

If you still need to be persuaded instead, here you can find a little piece of our story in the racing world.

Ask for a custom consultancy. We’ll show you why lubricants are not all the same.

We approached competitions at the end of the 70s and our first technical partnership was on a speedway track. Would you have ever imagined it?

Offroad competitions became familiar for Pakelo and at the beginning of the 90s we got into the game (well, into the desert, indeed) with a Perlini’s Dumper that raced at the Paris-Dakar. In those extreme conditions the dumper was lubricated by our Pakelo Kentron, at the time our top-quality product for diesel heavy duty engines.

The African bug never left us and after quite a few years we came back in the desert to support Italian rider Paolo Ceci at the Africa Eco Race for 2 years in a row, racing with an Honda the first year, and then with a KTM. It was the second year, in 2018 when Paolo gained P1 on the motorcycle category.

Now there’s Team Kapriony that carries out Pakelo’s flag at the Africa Eco Race and they keep us breathless every January from year to year. True #Pakeloheroes.

Since we’re already on the motorcycle topic, with Assomotor Team we raced on the Motocross European Championship and in 2018 the rider Mathys Boisramè defeated all the rivals and gainer the P1.

The right engine oil or transmission oil can make the difference.

After testing our oils for trucks, for endurance and motocross motorcycles, in 2020 a phone call gets us in touch with Umberto Scandola, famous rally driver from Verona. Umberto races under the Hyundai Rally Team Italia colors, a team connected with Hyundai Motorsport. With him we began a new partnership that brought our lubricants in the WRC3 races.

Do you think this is over? Nah. In addition to the offroad palmares, we wanted to test our lubricants on track.

Our collaboration with Maserati Trofeo (single-brand championship for gentlemen drivers commissioned directly by the OEM between 2003 and 2006) is embedded in the Pakelo Lubricants’ story. We were official technical partners of the championship for three years and in addition to the lubricants supply for the cars involved, we made something more: we competed with our own Pakelo car.

Never change a winning oil, that’s the way they say it, right? So, Amato Ferrari, Ferrari AF Corse’s GT Team Principal, after knowing us at Maserati Trofeo started a collaboration that we’ve carried on ever since 2003. Our transmission oils run inside his Ferraris that compete in championships as ELMS, GT Open, GT Endurance. Victories? P1 in WEC 24h of Le Mans in 2012 and 2014 with a Ferrari 458 driven by Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander, just to say.

But these are not the only podiums we gained in Le Mans: Risi Competizione, American team based in Houston Texas that has been collaborating with us since 2018, gained a P2 that very same year. They looked for a transmission oil with great performances for their Ferrari, and meeting Pakelo was a marriage in heaven.

Oils for motorcycles, for cars, for endurance competitions and for on-track races… what’s missing in our palmares? Open wheels, obviously.

So let’s talk about Team Trident, our partner since 2016. With them and other teams in Formula 1 and Formula E we perfectioned our Racing oil for transmissions, specifically made for competition-use: the Pakelo Racing Transmission DLS A. A crown jewel among our lubricant set.

Never change a winning oil, that’s the way they say it, right?

Year after year we welcomed change as an opportunity to compete and stand out. We lived all great changes that shaked lubrication market: from monograde to multigrade oils, the evolution of synthetic oils, the ever-performing additives, the evolution towards low viscosity fluids to match fuel economy engines. The technological innovation of mechanics never stops, so we don’t stop either.

#PakeloHeroes

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