Author: John-Joe Vollans
Photography: Wikimedia & Volvo
Despite its meagre 16 years of producing cars, Dutch automotive doyennes DAF left a lasting imprint on motoring history. Many a European motorist, of a certain age, will remember the puttering flat-twin and slurring rpm soundtrack of DAF’s little city cars, but that was a long way from how this innovative manufacturer started…
A machine factory in Eindhoven, Netherlands was founded by the Van Doorne brothers in 1928. The brothers, originally from Deurne (30km to the east) started by supplementing their experience in construction by making trailers. A few years later, the famous moniker was officially adopted when Van Doorne’s Aanhangwagen Fabriek was shortened to D.A.F.
For much of the 1930s and 1940s DAF concentrated on trailer construction, diversifying into rail freight and military sectors, before the latter led to its first truck. An initial order from the military for 150 trucks has led to an entire dynasty of heavy haulers that’s still going strong today, but how did the cars come about?
In keeping with many European manufacturers of the time, DAF’s first foray into passenger cars came about when Hub Van Doorne dabbled with the idea of a peoples’ car during the war. Unlike the single prototype which – rather appropriately, considering its appearance was sold to a circus – the idea for a mass market machine didn’t go away. Post 1945, work continued, with the culmination coming in 1958 with DAF’s first car unveiled at the Amsterdam International Motor Show (AutoRAI) event.
The work of engineer van Brugghen and designer van des Brink, known subsequently as the DAF 600, was, at least to a casual observer, a rather conventional steel monocoque two-door saloon, however, there was nothing ordinary about its underpinnings…
The 600 was the first to feature DAF’s clever Variomatic continuously variable transmission (CVT). We don’t have space here, or frankly the engineering nous, to fully explain this rather complicated – yet also blissfully simple at the same time – transmission but, in essence, it relies on a pair of V belts acting on cone-shaped pulleys to vary road speed, while keeping engine rpm within an ideal operating range.
Actuators push the opposed faces of the pulleys (cone-shaped remember) together or apart, changing the effective diameter and therefore the ‘gear’ ratio. Clear? Good. All that the driver has to operate is a simple forward/reverse gear selector between the front seats, with drive taken up by a centrifugal clutch and yes, technically, that does mean a Variomatic-equipped DAF can travel as fast backwards as forwards, though we dare you to try… Please don’t!
The little Dutch automotive curio drew plenty of attention in the era of bubble cars and similarly diminutive machines. Here was a full-sized (sort of) car with a fully-automatic transmission that was attractive and easy to own and drive. By the time the 600 was in full-scale production, it’s reported that over 4000 pre-orders had been placed.
Fast forward to 1961 and the success of the 600 demanded a continuation along similar lines. Said follow-up was called the Daffodil, or 30, with far more angular styling and a slightly upgraded 746cc engine, developing a mighty 30bhp; up from the original car’s neck-snapping 22bhp! Clearly, these little cars weren’t about performance – with 60mph arriving in more than 30 seconds and top speed only five miles per hour faster than that – but they were useful, economical and relatively easily maintained little runabouts.
With the limitations of its own air-cooled, twin-cylinder engine, larger DAF models with better performance were decidedly lacking. Even another increase in displacement for 1967’s DAF 44 wasn’t deemed enough to keep pace with the competition.
The air-cooled engine continued to power smaller DAF models right up until 1975 but, to cure its performance shortfall in its larger models, DAF did a deal with Renault to use its four-cylinder 1108cc water-cooled engine in the DAF 55. The 55 shared the same sharp Giovanni Michelotti designed bodyshell as the 44 but benefitted from the aforementioned gallic power plant, greatly increasing its appeal in export markets.
Well aware that a sporty and sexy image in the late 1960s couldn’t have been further from the reality of DAF’s impact, the firm set about changing this by entering Formula 3 and rallying. The former saw cooperation with Brabham and Cosworth and resulted in limited success, including a handful of wins and podium places during wet events; where the more progressive power delivery of the Variomatic transmission showed great potential. DAF entered endurance rallying to prove the Variomatic transmission’s reliability by entering the gruelling London-Sydney Marathon event in 1968, one in which both 55s entered managed to finish. To commemorate this great achievement, upgraded Marathon versions of the 55 and 66 were offered from the factory, with the package also available to upgrade ‘lesser’ models.
By the 1970s, DAF was struggling to maintain both its truck and car businesses, forcing the latter into the hands of Volvo in 1975. The Swedish firm was in great need of a small car line-up, to sit alongside its famously square saloons and estates, making DAF an ideal buyout.
Though now sold with a Volvo badge, these Dutch-built machines still used a version of the CVT transmission. Volvo’s 343 was developed on the back of DAF’s own work to produce a larger model, called the DAF 77. Volvo would shift more than 1.1 million 343s and later 340s and 360s by 1991, which marked the end of DAF-inspired passenger car production, leaving DAF punks wishing their favourite firm would make cars, one more time…
Have memories of driving a DAF? Own one today? We’d love to hear from you! Drop us a line below.
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