When it comes to the painting of trucks and trailers, the Swedish bodyshop Hovgårdens Ytskydd goes for quality and uses Standofleet, the Standox paint system for commercial vehicles.
Personally, Onni Kreivi is more a fan of fast cars. The experienced entrepreneur was a racing driver for 13 years and today drives a Ferrari Spider. Self-employed since 1976, he founded Hovgårdens Ytskydd in 1993. In the early years, the small bodyshop near Göteborg on the Swedish west coast only had a single spray booth for commercial vehicles. Today, it has over 15 employees (five of them exclusively for painting work), 2,000 m² of surface area, 4,000 m² of outside space and six spray booths. This is where trucks, including motorized cranes, trailers, radar stations and other items of defence equipment are repaired and painted.
Kreivi’s main customer is Volvo Trucks in Sweden. The cooperation agreement with the Swedish manufacturer comprises work on chassis as well as on drivers’ cabs and fuel tanks. Hovgårdens has been working for Volvo since 1986, and under a cooperation agreement since 2002. Since then, 400 to 500 Volvo trucks rumble through the bodyshop per year. They are all painted with Standofleet.
Kreivi, who has been working with Standox products since 1992, introduced Standofleet in his business back in 2004. In view of imminent European VOC legislation, he wanted to change over as early as possible to the new, eco-friendly paint system. Thanks to support from Standox, the changeover went off without a hitch. In fact, he’s highly appreciative of the support from Standox, particularly when it comes to colour matching. Moreover, most of his employees have taken part in training at the Standox Training Academy.
The high colour accuracy, ease of application, high coverage and outstanding gloss of Standofleet made a big impression on Kreivi and his team right from the beginning. Onni Kreivi: “Standofleet is easy to use, and the results are brilliant. If you ask me, no other commercial vehicle paint system on the market can compare with it.”
The team of Hovgårdens Ytskydd in Sweden is highly impressed not only by the quality, but also by the user-friendliness and profitability of the Standofleet system for commercial vehicles.
Owner Onni Kreivi with his wife Merja
Refinishers’ Olympics in Japan
Standox waterborne paints are in use all over the world today. And the 39th WorldSkills International in Shizuoka, Japan, is no exception. For the finals for the title of “Best Vehicle Refinisher”, the event organizers chose Standox quality and provided the contestants not only with the required basic materials, but also with Standohyd. The competition takes place every two years covering 40 trades from technology, industry and the service sectors. 830 up-and-coming talented youngsters from all over the world took part, including the best refinishers from 18 countries.
The best refinisher and Gold Medal winner was Taneli Sarajärvi from Finland. The Standox distributor in Finland, the HL Group, arranged a special training session for him at the Standox Training Centre before the finals. This means that during the finals he was able to apply the tips and tricks that the specialists had taught him beforehand in application and coloristic. Incidentally, world champion Taneli Sarajärvi is by no means new to painting with Standox, as he makes use of Standox product quality “Made in Germany” in his everyday work.
 In the battle for the title, the winner, Taneli Sarajärvi from Finland, used waterborne paints from Standox.
Picture: Marsa Jurvakainen
Standox paints BMW Sauber Formula 1 cars
Standox is the supplier to the BMW Sauber Formula 1 team. The Wuppertal paint maker supplies the colours for the vehicles of the BMW Formula 1 team exclusively through its Swiss national distributor André Koch AG in Urdorf near Zurich.
Picture: BMW
The selected paint system is easy to apply and is distinguished by its excellent flow, immaculate gloss and rapid drying. The carbon fibre parts supplied by BMW are first primed in white with Standox VOC Nonstop Primer Filler. The finish in the BMW Sauber team colours of white, blue and red is executed with high-grade Standox topcoats. Smaller parts and the chassis are painted with Standocryl VOC Car Paint.
Tatra’s got the tiger
Tatra, the long established Czech truck manufacturer, came up with an original idea for drawing exhibition visitors’ attention to its vehicles with out-of-the-ordinary finishes. In close cooperation with the Czech national distributor Servind, two exhibition vehicles were adorned with the Siberian tiger in elaborate airbrush design. The idea arose in connection with the introduction of new engines that already comply with the coming Euro 5 exhaust gas standard. The airbrush artworks were applied with the Standohyd waterborne paint system from Standox. They were then coated with Standocryl VOC Premium Clearcoat.
Applying waterborne paints was a special challenge for the refinishers, as the process for airbrush painting with water-soluble paints differs from that with conventional materials.
Two exhibition vehicles of the Czech manufacturer Tatra were skilfully painted using the airbrush technique.
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