Tag Archives: Jan de Rooy

Double Head

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This bizarre machine is a 1984 DAF ‘Double-Head’, built to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally by Dutch driver Jan de Rooy, who wanted more power than one DAF truck could provide. So he used two.

Joining two 11.6 litre DAF 3300s back-to-back behind the cabs, Jan created a twin-engined all-wheel-drive 13-ton behemoth, and one of the strangest Dakar competitors to ever enter.

Sadly the DAF ‘Double-Head’ failed to finish, but it set the template for Jan de Rooy to refine the idea and return with a vehicle that would go on to become a Dakar legend…

But we’ll stay in 1984 for now, courtesy of this spectacular recreation of the DAF ‘Double-Head’ by Flickr’s p.vanderloo, who has replicated not just the truck’s mad exterior but its drivetrain too.

A beautifully replicated livery and full LED lights complete the build, and you can head to the desert in 1984 – twice – via the link above.

When a Truck Overtook a Rally Car

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Back in the ’80s, motorsport rules were… loose. Group B rallying created monsters beyond anything seen before, and Dakar… well that was even wilder. Entered in the late-’80s, DAF’s unbelievable eleven-ton TurboTwin 95 X1 was powered by two engines with three turbochargers each, producing a combined 1,200bhp, and which – as this infamous helicopter footage from the 1988 event shows – made it so fast it could overtake the leading cars.

Piloted by Dutch legend Jan de Rooy, the TurboTwin won the truck category in 1987, before an awful 180km/h crash killed one of Jan’s teammates the following year, causing DAF to immediately halt all motorsport activities and withdraw the TurboTwin mid-competition.

Sadly we’d not see its like again, but we can still get up close to DAF’s astonishing Dakar racer courtesy of previous bloggee Nanko Klein Paste, and his spectacular brick-built replica.

Constructed in 1:16 scale, Nako’s TurboTwin recreation includes those two triple-turbo engines, complete with intake pipes, radiators and intercoolers, pressure vessels and ancillaries, a removable body liveried with superbly replicated decals, a hugely detailed interior behind opening doors, and full LED lighting from Brickstuff.

On display at the DAF Museum in Eindhoven later this year, there’s more to see of Nanko’s amazing creation at his ‘DAF TurboTwin 95 X1’ album on Flickr, and you can overtake a Dakar-winning Peugeot rally car at 200km/h in an eleven ton truck via the link above.