1988 Paris to Dakar Rally
DAF 95 Turbo Twin X1 and X2
Manufacturer: DAF Trucks
Country: Netherlands
Twin engined 6 Turbos 4WD
Power: 1220 hp (2x610)
Torque: 4700 N⋅m (2x2350)
Displacement: 2x11,600 cm³
Weight: 10,500 kg
Background:
How do you make a ten ton truck go over 200 km/h on sand? How about two 11.6 L diesel engines and six turbos.
Dutch truck driver and rally enthusiast Jan de Rooy, convinced DAF that he could design a winner, an overall winner, that could beat even the Peugeots and Porsches.
He designed a simple but sturdy space frame aluminum chassis, with two monstrous coal-belching 11.6 L I6 biturbo diesel engines mounted side by side and powering an axle each.
A fairing for the mechanics and a standard truck cab (and driver's side cigarette holder for chain-smoking de Rooy) completed the machine.
The result was a 1000 hp monster dubbed the FAV 3600 4x4 TurboTwin.
They entered it in the 1986 race, but it broke its front axle at the fourth-to-last stage and was forced to retire.
DAF and de Rooy did not let this deter them, and they returned in 1987 with the TurboTwin II upgrade. De Rooy won first place in the Truck class, hours ahead of second place, but only 11th overall. Good, but not good enough.
For the 1988 Dakar race, the engines were upgraded with an extra turbo each, a larger turbine feeding the other two, for a combined output of 1220 hp and 4700 Nm of torque. Wheels were replaced with 24″ alloys, and the new DAF 95 body was used.
Performance was insane for such a heavy vehicle, top speed was slightly above 240 km/h, and it could accelerate 0-100 km/h in about 8 seconds.
The new truck was called the 95 TurboTwin X1 and entrusted to de Rooy. One of the TurboTwin II trucks from the previous year was upgraded with the new body shell and wheels, also renamed 95 TurboTwin X2, and given to DAF's second driver Theo van de Rijt.
While being 3rd in the overall standings (and leading the truck classification by hours) Jan de Rooy is going head-to-head with Ari Vatanen, passing him with speeds up to 210 km/h in the desert heading for an overall stage win.
Legend says Vatanen then repeatedly punched his steering wheel in frustration and threatened to leave the Peugeot works team if they did not protest against the DAF Team and Jan de Rooy for interfering the car classification.
See the X1 passing the Peugot at full speed in this video:
At the 8th stage, the X1 was in third place overall, the X2 of van de Reijt rolled over at high speed, cartwheeling six times and throwing navigator Kees van Loevezijn out of the cab. van Loevezijn died and the other two occupants were seriously injured. The X2 was completely destroyed and DAF retired from the Dakar and withdrew from motorsports entirely for over a decade. For his part, de Rooy would not race again until 2002.
Following the accident, trucks were removed from competition for the 1989 edition and only allowed to run as support to cars and motorcycles, and came back a year later with a speed limit and a demand for truck teams to tune it down before someone else was killed.
The 95 TurboTwin, like the Group B rally cars we all know and love, is the finest product of another time, a time when people in motorsports were committed to find out just how fast you could make a road legal race car or truck within the existing rules. Like with Group B, it turned out that how fast was too fast and to lethal. That said, while the X2 is still a pile of scrap somewhere in the Ténéré desert, the X1 lives as an exhibit at the DAF museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands, is kept in running condition and is occasionally driven by de Rooy
