Sinisalo is a genuine motor sport clothing brand with almost 60 years of experience in business. Company's headquarters are located in town of Lahti, Southern part of Finland.
Business Areas
The Sinisalo business areas are Moto Cross clothing and equipment, Snowmobile clothing and equipment, Street motor bike clothing and Cross country ski gloves. Sinisalo products are sold in over 40 countries all over the World. More than 70 % of the annual turnover comes from export.
Early Years
The roots of Sinisalo Sport Ltd as a company go back to the year 1953, when Mr. Armas G. Sinisalo started a small business in his name in the small town of Myrskylä located in the south-eastern part of Finland. In 1974 the Sinisalo family founded Sinisalo Sport Ltd and decided to choose Puolanka as the location to build their new factory for the company. The original business idea of this new factory was to act as an OEM manufacturer for Finnish sporting goods companies, in particular those involved with ice hockey, providing them with efficient and modern production facilities with the necessary work force.
Very it soon became obvious that tough competition in the sporting goods business forced companies to battle for shrinking margins and the transition of labour-intensive work from Europe to the Far East started. At that point Sinisalo decided to start producing equipment also using its own trademark, which was chosen to be the same as the owner family: Sinisalo. Initially an attempt was made to become a true brand in ice hockey and, for instance, one of the most famous Finnish players of that era, Mr. Veli-Pekka Ketola was recruited as a sponsored athlete to be used in sales promotion and building the brand image.
Thanks to being involved in the ice hockey equipment business, Sinisalo learned to use new, man-made fabrics, which were of lightweight, inexpensive but very durable and easy to wash.
From an ice hockey equipment manufacturer to an international motor sports clothing brand
Moto Cross (MX) as a form of motor racing dates back to the 50´s and became increasingly popular and famous in Scandinavia, thanks to several internationally known and successful Swedish and Finnish riders. Traditionally riders were using leather suits, which were heavy, warm and difficult to clean after riding on sand, mud and dirt.
In the 70´s Finnish ice hockey equipment manufacturers introduced the idea of using man-made materials to make clothing for MX riders. A short, but hard battle centred around the rules of Moto Cross as a form of sport was started. Companies producing and selling riding suits made of genuine leather tried to resist man-made materials claiming that they could burn and hence cause serious damage to riders. Since riders liked the new type of clothing much more, the battle ended with the companies such as Sinisalo becoming winners and quickly achieving a significant market share. Another fortunate coincidence was that Mr. Heikki Mikkola, a Finnish MX rider won many times the World Champion series in the 70´s in practice made Sinisalo MX pants the industry standard of the era. Since those days Sinisalo MX clothing has been synonymous with high quality, durability and excellent fitting.
In the best year for Sinisalo (1981), actually all Championships in the international MX series (125, 250 and 500 cc) were won using Sinisalo clothing. Business was booming with its own brand all round the world, including the U.S.A. and Asia-Pacific, not just Europe. The company also worked as an OEM manufacturer using some 30% of capacity for the production of other MX brands.
Machinery, skills and the know-how needed in producing ice hockey gloves were used successfully in the production of MX gloves and further in the production of Cross Country (XC) skiing gloves.
As the Sinisalo brand was well-known in MX, this also gave an opportunity to enter the RR riding suit market.
For the first time, the World Championship and US Supercross championship were won in the same year, 1993, by a sponsored rider of Sinisalo.
In this way, during the past three decades of its history, Sinisalo has been making the transition from an OEM manufacturer company to a trading company specializing in motor sport clothing, including product design, having them produced, selling and marketing them on the international market using the Sinisalo brand.