History of Dutch Motor Car / Automobiles

• 8.8.2. DAF

• In 1928 two brothers, Huub and Wim van Doorne started to build trailers. In 1932 the company was named Van Doorne's Aanhangwagen (trailer) Fabriek.

• In 1949, when the company started making buses and trucks, the name was changed to Van Doorne's Automobiel Fabriek (DAF).

• In 1955 the brothers decided to produce their first car and the following year a prototype was made, with a small pre-production batch following in 1957.

• The DAF 600 was shown at the 1958 Dutch car show and over 3,000 were ordered.

• It had two doors, a 590 cc engine, an automatic transmission designed by DAF (called Variomatic) and a top speed of nearly 90 kph (56 mph).

• The first cars were delivered in 1959.

• Between 1959 and 1975, when DAF’s car division was sold to Volvo, the company produced in 1961 the DAF 750, a more powerful variant of the 600, the DAF 33 (1967-74), DAF 44 (1966-74), DAF 55 (1967-72) and finally the DAF 66 from 1971.