To Tampere A big old Mercedes-Benz 608 stands in the Park in Mältinranta.
It's hard to tell from the outside whether it's a van or a minibus, but at least it has a sauna. There is a chimney on the roof of the car from which smoke billows.
A similar spending game has hardly been seen anywhere before.
Its owner, posing as a sauna major Jarno Mannerhoviconfirms the uniqueness of the car known as a sauna car.
“As far as I know, nothing else like it can be found, at least in Finland.”
Mannerhovi prepares the car's surroundings for sauna use: garden chairs and tables in place, a large rug under them.
“When you take a sauna at a sauna party, it's never just about soaking. Part of this matter is to create the entire surrounding environment suitable for sauna use.”
The sauna pool is built in a former fire engine.
Continental court has owned saunabiil for three years. He says that he sometimes saunas in it in the winter as well, but the most frequent use is in the summer.
In addition, the car is also constantly used as a means of transportation: it is the only car used by Mannerhov, who lives in Valkeakoski.
“I use this to go to my hobbies and visit my parents in Tampere and take the children to school.”
However, it is said that with a sauna you can't even get harder than ninety on the bottom of the sole. Diesel costs about 300 euros every month.
Sauna party is as if made for its owner, because Mannerhovi, who has had a long career as a taxi driver, loves both driving and saunas.
“When you have a sauna in your car, you can heat it up anywhere and look for new beautiful landscapes to stop in for a sauna.”
The landscapes aren't any crazier this time either. Around Mältinranta opens up the protected cultural landscape of Tammerkoski's upper course with its factory chimneys and Finlayson's parks.
Next door is a winter swimming spot for open swimmers. It comes in handy, because there is no shower or separate washing area in Mannerhov's sauna party.
However, there are other amenities in the sauna built in a former fire engine. There is even a small dressing room with sofas and armchairs between the driver's cabin and the rear steam room.
The sauna room is in the back of the vehicle.
Continental court is the fourth owner of the car built in 1976. For the first thirty years, the truck was used by the divers of the Vaasa Sea Rescue Department.
Third owner of the car, entrepreneur Pete Perttula says by phone that a fire engine from Vaasa was sold to a musician from Helsinki, who built a sauna in it.
“There was already a separate and isolated space in the back of the car, which was built to store the equipment of sea rescuers. The musician turned the space into a sauna.”
The almost 50-year-old car is not suitable for the museum register, because the chimney passage and the new structures that came with the construction of the sauna have changed the car significantly.
Perttula says that he and his entrepreneurial partner ran a small-scale business with a sauna party.
“For example, we saunaed bachelor parties. Sometimes we took groups to the bar in the sauna.”
The sauna party was also part of the hockey World Cup championship hype in 2019, when dozens of people cooled off in the fountain went to the sauna in a car parked in Tampere's Keskustori.
“At some point, the police also came to check what kind of car this is. They said it was business and sat down on the ferry,” Perttula recalls.
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“You rarely get that in a wood sauna in the national landscape.”
Soon the entrepreneurs realized that they needed a winter storage place for the sauna party. The car was too massive to store in one's own yard.
Tehdas 108, a creative center and department of the creative industry located in Nokian Tehdassaari, longed for a sauna on its beach. The needs met, and Jarno Mannerhovi, who was the factory's development director at the time, got a new eye.
Next, the plague intervened in fate. As a result of the corona pandemic, all operations of Tehdas 108 stopped. Finally, the owner decided to sell the property.
When Perttula's parking space in Tehdassaari disappeared, Mannerhovi claimed the sauna bill for himself.
“Sauna biili is personally meaningful because it is the only tangible thing that remained on my journey from Tehdas 108,” says Mannerhovi.
Henrik Lindström has been to a sauna party before, Disa Kamula has not. Both say they are sauna enthusiasts.
The stove the crackling halos in the nest heat the steam room in the back of the car. At the same time, two of Mannerhov's friends arrive in Mältinranta.
Cultural producer, chairman of Tampere flamenco week Disa Kamula and working in the communications industry Henrik Lindström identify themselves as sauna enthusiasts. Of them, only Lindström has been to the baths of the sauna party before.
Kamula takes no less than three baths. Between them, he goes for a dip in Tammerkoski a couple of times, even though it's freezing outside and the rising north wind makes the air feel many times colder.
“The car has gentle bumps. It is rare to find it in a wood sauna in the national landscape. On this one, you can take a sauna in all of Finland's national landscapes, if you happen to come across it.”
Finland in addition, the sauna party has been gathering attention at least in the Baltics.
Mannerhovi recalls with amusement one of his trips to Riga, where he saunaed local cultural activists all evening.
“Finland has always been considered a tough sauna country, but my own perception changed when I was there with the sauna party.”
Mannerhovi says that he gave up after three and a half hours, but the Latvians only started to get up to speed at that point.
“You're about to run out of the car in the middle of nowhere!”
Saunabiili owner Jarno Mannerhovi (left) cooling off with Disa Kamula and Henrik Lindström.
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