Near Sabiha Gökçen International Airport and the Sea of Marmara in the eastern part of Istanbul, an enormous six-story mall is being constructed. Oto World Asya will consist of 95,000 square meters of everything car related – new and second hand car dealerships, accessories and car audio stores, tyre stores, traffic consultancies, insurance agencies and much more.

For this project Atlas 1, the largest floor grinding contractor in Turkey, was asked to do the almost impossible  – grind and polish 65,000 square meters of concrete floors into high gloss showrooms in just 100 days. To complete this task they chose to use five Husqvarna  PG 820 floor grinders running in three shifts.

Strong performer

Mustafa Kalelioglu is the Sales and Marketing Manager for Cullas Ltd STi, the company distributing Husqvarna’s products in Turkey. When he approached Atlas 1 with the opportunity to add the brand new remote controlled PG 820 RC to their line up, they jumped at the chance.

“PG 820 RC can perform at a 30 per cent higher level than the standard model, and since they were on a tight schedule, that was very welcome”, says Mustafa  Kalelioglu.

 This was the first sale of PG 820 RC in the European region, so Joakim Leff-Halstein, Global Product Manager Floor Grinding at Husqvarna,  flew to Istanbul for the delivery.

“I was truly impressed with Oto World Asya, it’s one of the largest project involving polished concrete floors I’ve heard of. I think it was a perfect fit for our machines and our HiPERFLOOR™ method”, says Joakim Leff-Hallstein.

Working with PG 820 RC is not just faster, it also exposes the operator to fewer constraints.

“It’s hard work operating a traditional floor grinder all day, so of course it’s easier to handle it via remote. I’ve heard that they fought to be the one to operate the RC machine”, Joakim Leff-Halstein says smiling.

Growing in Turkey

Husqvarna has been an established brand in Turkey for decades when it comes to Forest and Garden, but Construction only started working the market seven years ago.

“We’ve come a long way in a short time. Atlas 1 started using Husqvarna machines two years ago, and hey are since recently working exclusively with us. Being so actively involved in such a massive project as Oto World Asya is a great reference for us and will make our job much easier when closing sales in the future”, says Mustafa Kalelioglu at Cullas Ltd STi.

The overall importance of the Turkish market is also growing, Joakim Leff-Hallstein points out. “Turkey is a large and important market for us and with a higher growth rate than many other European markets. Growth is high and there is a lot of ongoing and planned construction. I also think this will prove to be important for our expanding presence in the Middle Eastern and Asian markets”, says Joakim Leff-Hallstein.

More to come

So how is Husqvarna’s machinery performing at the construction site? Mustafa Kalelioglu says that they couldn’t be more pleased. Atlas 1’s work with Husqvarna’s floor grinders has proved so efficient, that they are now ahead of schedule.

“Initially the contractors building the mall had some doubts about if we could keep up with them, it was important that the grinding and polishing aligned with the ongoing construction work. But guess what? They fell behind us! Now we are waiting for the building crew to open more spaces where we can start to grind and polish.”