Longtime Jalopnik readers may remember Juha Sipilä. He is a former telecom executive, politician, and builder of a badass El Camino that runs on wood gas. Also, as of last night, he is the prime minister-elect of Finland.
Dreams do come true.
Sipilä is the leader of Finland’s Centre Party, which cruised to victory in Sunday night’s elections like a sweet, sweet wood-burning El Camino barreling down Route 66 spreading democracy and awesomeness in its wake.
I could use this space to talk about how Sipilä seeks to return Finland to economic prosperity after years of being mired in a recession, but that’s not really what we all care about. Instead, we care that Sipilä is a car enthusiast who specializes in wood gas conversions.
A few years back, he built a wood gas-powered El Camino called El Kamina — “The Stove” in Finnish — to show how biofuels can be done. The kickass muscle truck can run for up to 125 miles on wood gas power all the way up to a top speed of 87 mph.
And now, its builder is the Prime Minister of Finland. That’s awesome.
I wonder if he’s up for some kind of Chevy burnout contest with Joe Biden?