(first posted 6/15/2019) Quite the contrast with the DAF commercial vehicles I usually post, this little DAF 33 van with an air-cooled 746 cc flat-twin engine. In 1967, the DAF Daffodil Type 32 was simply renamed 33. All Daffodils and the later 33 were merely evolutions of the Oer (Ur)-DAF, the 1959 model 600.
These vans sold well in my country. Ultra cheap and simple practicality, appreciated by both government agencies and privately owned companies. It followed the tried and true compact van-recipe of yore: a wide and tall cargo compartment right behind the car model’s B-pillar. In this case with a single rear cargo door.
I said cheap and simple, by no means it was fast, given is maximum power output of 29 DIN-hp. But bear in mind that anyone who ever bought an air-cooled DAF couldn’t care less about acceleration or speed. Not then, not now.
Related article, an overview of all small DAFs:
Museum Classics: DAF Museum Eindhoven, Part Three – The Cars
Love the way the back is chopped off severely , but really don’t like 3-stud wheel hubs.
It looks like it could do with a more substantial rear bumper.
How so? Three is the magic number. I have never understood why more could ever be needed to keep the rims in place on a light vehicle. What benefits do four or five give? Here in Sweden winter tires are mandatory so I have to shift wheels twice a year. Fewer lugs saves time and money for everybody.
Yes, that has always intrigued me too, the fascination with the number of lug nuts. I mean, we’re talking about a vehicle with a GVM-rating of 1,120 kg here (710 kg curb weight, 410 kg payload capacity).
I had a 51 Humber ten(Hillman Minx) with three stud wheels it got used pretty hard the wheels never gave any trouble.
It’s not so much about curb weight or payload – three just looks wrong. Four is OK, five is perfect.
It’s the same with wheels – three spoke alloys only look good on a motorcycle. Five spoke alloys are as good as it gets.( Multiples of five spokes would be hard to keep clean.)
Getting back to the lug nuts, most owners/tyre depots habitually over-tighten them and this can cause weakness, so having more than is strictly necessary is a safety feature.
Ah, well, I’ll give an anecdotal opinion..
I once had an early Peugeot 404. Without the centralizing (and supportive) benefit of a sticking-out hub thingy – I don’t know the word – in the middle, the three lugs wore out-of-round. That meant a vibratory wheel, and possibly an out-of-alignment one, that couldn’t be fixed. A 404 isn’t a heavy car: a loaded-up DAF van might be, perhaps.
That all said, there’s been millions and millions of French cars sold with this arrangement, so who knows. Perhaps it only turns up as a problem when the cars are pretty old, as my Pug then was.
The counterpart of the famous 2cv Van: an aircooled flat twin and a very simple lay out. Only RWD and Variomatic made the difference .
But where have they all gone to? Holland was full of these.
Never seen one mind you even DAF sedans are very rare here I guess the hilly nature of this country scared people away from them but it follows the tried and true path of several auto makers of small vans Austin, Morris Vauxhall and Ford to think of the more common brands put a large box behind the front passenger compartment and someone will find a use for it.
Cool, the Dutch 2CV Fourgonette, and possibly faster if you swapped in a 66 engine.
Love the DAF logo.
Those are pretty rare these days, but back in the 80’s they were still plentyfull and cheap, and I have to admit we trashed more then one of those poor little cars by overloading them or simply trowing them out when they needed something major. Also rust…..
And rust….
Saw a similar pick up version in the UK last year, which was my introduction to the fact that these existed.
My late Father bought one of these vans for his business in Bideford, Devon in the late 1960s. The van lasted until the 1980s, and was then dumped at the back of a local Citroen dealer’s premises opposite! I only wished I’d asked my Father to keep it for me…..
Interesting , I wonder if lucky to find an un dented one or $pent serious $ making it look this good .
-Nate
I saw a DAF (real truck) yesterday, and thought of you.
I had no idea they built vans on this platform, but I can see the usefulness in moving small loads around town back in the days when speed was not an issue. What would the payload have been, 250kg?
The registered payload capacity of this DAF is 410 kg (1,120 kg max. gross weight -/- 710 kg curb weight).
Oh dear!
The mildly pretty DAF 33 was quite uglified by this, and it lacks all the charm of a 2CV van or Renault 4 fourgonette.
Still, like being told about herpes when I was a teen, I learned something new, if undesirable, so thankyou, Johannes.