Over the Years: A Set of Wheels, From a Sausage Lorry to a GT Volvo

Raumaster Group currently operates nearly 80 different vehicles, including vans, forklift trucks, reach stackers, trailers, tractor loaders, and people lifts.

The first Raumaster company vehicle was acquired for the company in the spring of 1985. The vehicle in question was a former cold-storage lorry from the Finnish food industry company Saarioinen.

Painted red on top and white on the bottom, it matched the Raumaster colours and was affectionately named “the sausage lorry” by employees, as a nod to its past.

The car was often driven by the now-retired Vesa Heinilä. Due to its colouring, he was often greeted by passing ambulances on the road, as their drivers mistook it for another ambulance.

“One time, I was arriving at the Stockholm harbour, and as I stepped on the clutch, the clutch cable snapped. After a while, I thought to turn off the car and put it in first gear. I managed to start it up, switch gears and made it to my ship in time.” – Vesa Heinilä

Later, a GT-style Volvo was acquired for staff use. Many of the personnel preferred not to travel for work with their own cars, meaning a shared car also helped reduce company expenses.

After about a decade of use, the Volvo started to become unreliable. Staff would call one of the owners, Kauko Einälä, and receive instructions to leave it at the nearest car repair shop and take a taxi for the rest of the journey.

“I thought we should get a nice car so that people would actually want to use it. This was a time of cars like the Russian Moskvitš. The car ended up being quite the success, and it was driven for almost 400,000 kilometres” – Kauko Einälä