The first Gas Gas motorcycle
1985 Gas gas Halley 325cc

With the  SWM Guanaca trials motorcycle as inspiration Pibernat and Casas joined forced with Josep Paxau who was a free lance motorcycle designer and technician, who had his own trial shop based in Torino high in the Pyrenees mountains.Paxau had previously developed and helped to design models at Merlin motorcycles and he had also designed his own monoshock bike whilst working for them.  

The SWM Guanaca. The first GasGas was based on this

The Merlin derived Paxau prototype

This was the first GasGas prototype on show at the 1985 Barcelona Motorcycle show. It was based on the SWM Guanaca and the two bikes clearly resemble each other. The production models followed next year

This was the first GasGas prototype on show at the 1985 Barcelona Motorcycle show. It was based on the SWM Guanaca and the two bikes clearly resemble each other. The production models followed next year

Paxau worked for GasGas continually through all of the successful years of Jordi Tarres and then "moved on" to Sherco. 


In 1985 GasGas produced their first motorcycle and unveiled it at the Barcelona motorcycle show in 1985.

All Halley models featured engines made by the Italian Motovilla company .Every engine was sent to the new GasGas firm in parts. It was much less expensive to receive the engine this way. Dani assembled all of the early engines in the GasGas shop.

The engines were 350 cc,  high compression.6 speed gearbox 
Fibreglass seat tank unit with rubber moulded seat.The 1985 model had a drum front brake , but was in every other way entirely the same as the 1986 model which had a disc front brake.
Marzocchi front forks Horizontally mounted rear single shockAlloy swinging arm 

A copy of the 1986 Halley sales leaflet