Friday, October 03, 2008

Daf Legacy




Well another monster from the past, this one I've seen very close on the Versaille Prologue from the Dakar 88. What a nice truck !! A little bit of history : Daf had entered on the past Dakar, some nice trucks and some real weird as well, with his driver Jan de Rooy. De Rooy owned a Transport Company and was a motocross and Rallycross drives. His palmares is pretty impressive:
Rallycross-Palmares
Dutch International Rallycross Champion 1970, 1971 (1970 and 1971 also National Champion), 1972, 1973 and 1979
Dutch National Rallycross Cup winner for riders with international license in 1980
1973: 4th general Embassy Rallycross EK with 55 DAF Coupe (with Ford BDA engine)
1974: 5th general Embassy Rallycross EK with 55 DAF Coupe and DAF 66m (each with Ford BDA engine)
1979: 2nd general FIA Rallycross EK (Touring Cars) with Ford Escort RS1800
1982: 3rd overall Rallycross FIA European Championship (Division 2) with Audi Quattro

We can see a patern over here already, so the jump to Rally Raid was a matter of time. So in partership with DAF he entered his first Dakar. Overall 67th since in 82 cars and trucks were racing on the same category. From there on he climbed on the standings second place in 82 with the DAF F3300 4x4 "The Bull", winning in 86 on the trucks and finishing 11th overall with the DAF 3600 Turbo Twin II. Not satisfied to his last run, DAF and De Rooy came up with the Mega Monster... the DAF 95 X1 and X2. A sweet looking truck, following the concept of 2 engines, already used on the "Bi-cephalle" 84, on the Turbo Twin series but with way more power we could imagine. The X1 had 2 11.6 litter engines with 3 turbos on each for a total of 1200 Hp and way over 200 Km/h top speed. I remember watching the Dakar in 88 during the Ternere special and watching that truck catch the Peugeot and pass it. I remember some other drivers saying, if this thing starts before you you cannot pass it !!! Sadly De Rooy left the race after the crash of the X2 and the death of his navigator, but everyone knows he would win that Dakar hands down. Here you have a video that shows this beauty and his amazing pass on the sands of the Ternere .

No comments: