DAF TurboTwin - When Monsters Tried to Takeover The Dakar

I apologize to anyone whose ears are bothered by the incorrect pronunciation of DAF. I'm still learning to voice with the help of AI, and sometimes it's very difficult to find the right pronunciation, intonation, and so on. An attentive viewer might have also noticed issues with the stress in the surname of the great racer Ari Vatanen. I'm already working on a new series and will try to achieve better pronunciation quality.

Two 11.6 L diesel engines with 3 turbos for each. That's a unique configuration I never knew existed out there.

There's a Dutch documentary called "Daf in Le Dakar: De woestijn bleef leeg" (the desert remained empty. It is about the crash and the aftermath. There are interviews with quite a lot of DAF higher ups, other people involved, and Theo van de Rijt. His interview is heart breaking. He says he doesn't, but you can tell he blames himself. He rides his bicycle for 20 km's daily to clear his mind. There's a lot of guilt there. The dune section it crashed, was more of a series of ruts, not big dunes. It was right at the end of the fast run, so they were doing 160 to 180 km/h. It rolled several hundred metres in distance. Theo van de Rijt was still in the cab, Chris Ross was right in front of it and Cees van Loevezijn was 30 to 40 meters from the cab. In the rules, the seat mounts weren't mentioned and nobody thought to reinforce them. They were the same as the production truck. There is some pretty grim footage from a French TV crew. Their helicopter was commandeered as it had flown ahead of the race he night before the crash. A sandstorm at the start grounded all helicopters, including the rescue team. The TV helicopter was the only one able to fly, so it acted as rescue. It was first on the scene and the cameraman runs up to the cab and films everything, close up. He walks over to Van Loevezijn and films him for a short while.

Racing in the 80's was like watching gladiators: Insane, deadly and I imagine exciting. Current day racing is like watching UFC. Very skilled, well thought out and still exciting but safe(er).

The trucks are currently in the DAF museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Worth a visit if you’re in the area.

A poor decision by DAF itself to put a low experienced 'office staff crew' in one of the fastest rallytrucks of it's era! Victim was Jan De Rooy, who missed out on a victory, caused by poor leadership of DAF's executives.

Jan is still a legend in the Netherlands. His son is carrying the torch

Yeah that was quite a sight to see, a Peugeot getting overtaken by a Daf Truck, just horrible that this iconic image is overshadowed by a horrible crash. Just some side information for the people that haven't heard it yet: Jan De Rooy, the driver mentioned in this video: passed away January 30th this year at the age of 80. Lovely to see that his legacy is is still remaining and people world wide still talk about this Dakar legend. Rest in peace legend.

Great to see you including how the truck category and DAF ended up in the Dakar in the first place, as it provides a basis for understanding how "unlimited" class competitions in motorsports push the boundaries of engineering. In a similar vein, current rally cars are pretty much just as if not faster than the legendary Group B cars but that too is only possible thanks to the lessons learned in that era. Despite being a completely different field of competition, bicycle racing is currently facing the same dilemma of rally races in that they have no control over spectators and course interventions leading to many of the best athletes being knocked out of races or injured. Sadly, just as with motorsports, it might take a complete and utter disaster for them to learn from experience rather than history.

A good thing you got the power correct! Some online articles go as far as to claim 2400 horsepower for the ultimate 1988 TurboTwin but this is the result of someone confusing the total combined output for a per engine output and assuming that it still had to be doubled. The truck had a pair of compound turbocharged 600 horsepower (or 610, depending on the rating standard) engines for a total of 1200 hp (or 1220).

hard pass on ai voice

Sadly jan de rooy passed away a few months ago

Duf….Duf….DUF?!?! Who is Duf Trucks. DAF - Dee Ahh Ffff - DAF…like “Daffy Duck” minus the fy at the end. No “U” in it, and the aren’t Springfield’s finest beer 😂😂

It's always one who spoils the fun for everyone else.

Been to the DAF museum and these trucks are there, Very happy to work with ASML based in Eindhoven

Stuff like this makes me proud to work at DAF in Eindhoven

So instead of using what was learned from the truck crash to mandate that seatbelts for trucks must have their seatbelts attached to the roll cage they instead decided to limit the power of all competing trucks. Makes no sense. Who makes up these rules?

I'm going to argue one thing about this so called danger of "unlimited engineering", the 80s were a beautiful time for these engineers to shine but what should've been asked for them is for the safety of drivers to keep up with that. This conversation wouldn't be happening if those harnesses had been bolted to the cage instead of the seats, which doesn't make any sense.

I was a kid when DAF reached their peak and followed every second of it. I, and the rest of the truck-Dakar loving world, was gutted when the news of the crash broke. Rumors back then were that they crashed at over 220km/h. They apparently missed a sand-drift because of the angle of the sun. I'm still sad thinking back to it...

I belive Subaru had a couple buggies before buggies were a thing in dakar I'd love to hear about those insane things it was my favorite to watch when ever I saw it on Eurosport back in the day.