The only part that worked was the speedometer.

That is how Teekkarien Autokerho, the car club of the students of the Helsinki University of Technology in Otaniemi, tells the beginning of its sauna van: rain, the evening rush on the ring road, no wipers, no lights, and a speedometer showing eighty. The van could not drive, so they built a sauna into it. After the first bath, the club history notes, "it was found that a flue has a decisive effect on bathing comfort."

In 2000 the student paper T-lehti timed it: 70 degrees after twenty minutes of heating, 120 after an hour. "Well, the feet are cool," said a bather called Kalle. By then the van had been repainted red, with "changing room, men" and "changing room, women" on its front doors. There was, as the club puts it, of course no partition.

In May 2025 Yle photographed the gable-roofed van at a sauna event in Helsinki. Forty-three years on.

Would you get in?

Sources: Teekkarien Autokerho, history page "Autosauna" (archived 2011); T-lehti, 20.9.2000; Yle, 16.5.2025. The prints in the film are drawings, not the club's photographs.
Sounds: Freesound (CC0): Leonardmedia.nl, Ambiabstract, Tycoh, LiezelDippenaar, MorenaLuz, ivolipa, TRP, mohomran, SpliceSound, kyles, brunoboselli, mcmikai, tonalt, SukritSen, njjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj, spookymodem, I.fekry, zazz.sound.design, am7, qubodup, craigsmith, Sclolex; Mökkiperikunnalle sounds (CC0).