31 / 44
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
JUNE 2016
29
TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS
T
he inhabitants of Finland have a rep-
utation for being the somewhat un-
conventional folk of northern Europe.
Sauna championships or berry-picking
competitions are just some of the unusual
disciplines practised with great commit-
ment. It is also in this part of northern
Europe that Sami Repo built his own food
truck, perfectly suited to the endless Finn-
ish forests. Thanks partly to the off-road
capabilities of the Unimog U 318 serving
as its base, but also to the rustic 'do it
yourself' body, It is a unique piece.
Buying the Unimog was something of a
personal affair for Sami Repo. The Finn ex-
plains that he had first toyed with buying a
Unimog U 20 around seven years ago. “It
was purely for personal use, and I didn’t re-
ally have much idea of what I was going to
use the vehicle for.”
Repo lived in the US for a while and it was
there he came up with the idea of a food
truck. “It was in Austin. The town is a Mecca
for street food. I just had to do something
like that.” The body was tailor-made to his
own specifications over several months.
“I drilled every single hole myself,” he ex-
plains. His problem: “The truck was every-
thing rolled into one: a blue print, a test ve-
hicle and even the finished product.”
The centrepiece is a 400 kg special bar-
becue oven from Spain. Around the BBQ
oven, the dab hand added a wash basin, a
gas stove, work surfaces, a copper water
boiler and various cooking utensils. The rear
wall of the foodtruck is truly Finnish, on the
inside and outside: hanging in the kitchen
is an old school presentation board with
pictures of various whales. The outer skin
of the body, is made of old wooden pan-
els which Repo waterproofed using ‘tarvia’
(natural tar). The material is used in Finland
as a sauna infusion.
The link between the native Finn and food
isn’t something he plucked out of thin air.
Repo has spent many of his working years
as a photographer where he specialised in
food photography. He spends approximate-
ly half of the year in Helsinki, around four
months in his small, over 100-year-old farm
house in Simpele (Karelia, Eastern Finland)
and, every now and then, a few weeks in the
US for a change.
The food truck is used for company events,
birthday parties or public events. These take
place off-road and in the thick of winter, as
was the case with a recent food exhibition
in Rovaniemi.
It’s possible that the mobile kitchen won’t
be the only use he finds for the base vehicle.
On his initial encounter with the Unimog
all-rounder, Sami Repo was amazed by the
limitless possibilities the vehicle could offer
him: “A Unimog is a truck for life. I bought
the U 318 with all its hydraulic connections
and many extras. At the moment, I’m
dreaming about getting a crane for doing
forestry work on my farm. And I also need
to build myself a motor home body at some
point.”
b
MERCEDES-BENZ UNIMOG U318
food truck