Last week my brother Iggy came to visit me. We decided to went to the DAF Museum, in Eindhoven. The DAF museum is small but very nice. The collection is well presented. You have not only cars and trucks, but also real size recreations of the old factory, the directors office and even a small town square, that you can rent for celebrating special events such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
DAF was founded in 1928 by Hubert van Doorne. The complete name is “Doorne’s Aanhangwagen Fabriek” and that means “Doorne’s Trailer factory”. As the name implies, they started fabricating trailers for already existing trucks. After World War II they started making small trucks, trailers and buses.
In the mid fifties they started working on the “belt drive” (see pictures below), a unique continuously variable transmission or “variomatic” . They finally introduced that system with their first car in 1959, the DAF 600.
The company developed very innovative transmission systems not only for trucks, but also for cars. They were also involved in car racing.
During the early 70’s Volvo took over the car production. DAF continued making trucks until 1993, when they went bankrupt. In 1996 PACCAR took DAF over. PACCAR is also owner of Kentworth and Peterbilt, among others.
Enjoy the pics!
Trucks
Cars
The Museum
Scale models
Nice museum , the pice of history beatifull pictures
Claudio
That’s right, it’s a very nice museum! thanks for your comment!