Passion For Power

An encounter at a Dutch show with the enthusiastic Greek owner of a superb Scania 141 prompts a visit to the yard of Theodoros Patounas in northern Greece

- Paul O'Callaghan

Among the thousands of trucks on show at the 2018 Truckstar Festival in the Netherlands, one in particular stood out.

The crowd that had gathered around it were undeterred by the black smoke belching from its almost ground level side exhaust pipe. The driver of the truck, a Scania 141, was bringing a smile to the faces of his audience as he revved the snarling V8 engine, which could emit smoke from either the vertical stacks or the side pipe at the flick of a switch.

What made the 141 all the more interesting was that it bore Greek registration plates, the only truck from Greece at the show – and the fact that someone would drive a 42-year-old Scania 2500km from southern Europe to attend a truck show near the North Sea shows a level of passion to be admired.

Off to Ioannina

We decided to pay what turned out to be a memorable visit to Patounas Transport to see the Scania’s owner. On entering the pristine yard in the town of Ioannina in northern Greece, overlooking Lake Pamvotis, I am greeted by Tasos Polychroniadis, the resident panelbeater and handyman about the yard.

“Akis will arrive shortly,” he tells me. Ten minutes later, Akis duly arrives in none other than the venerable 141. Jumping down from the cab, beaming from ear to ear, he gives me a firm welcoming handshake.

Theodoros Patounas (known to his friends as Akis), 42 years old, has been around trucks all of his life. Scania trucks to be precise. Both his father and his uncle were owner-drivers who started out with Scania-Vabis 56 models (built between 1962 and 1968), hauling everything and anything around the mountainous region of northern Greece.

In 1976, Paul Patounas, father of Theodoros, bought a brand-new Scania 141 6x2 lifting tag-axle rigid, complete with a drag trailer. For the next 16 years he operated the truck within Greece, venturing further and further from Ioannina as the years progressed.