6 Times More Better - The story of the DAF Turbo Twin X1 and X2

Words by Caster & Camber 

Even if you have dabbled on the fringes of automobilia then you may have come across an infamous video of a ten-ton lorry overtaking cars and outrunning a helicopter deep in the rolling sands of North Africa. If you have, then you saw this - Jan de Rooy’s 1988 DAF 95 Turbo Twin X1 Paris-Dakar.

Image: Unknown (Credit?)

Before we get into this truck, let’s quickly have a look at back a few years before to 1986. Dutch trucker Jan de Rooy had been racing DAF trucks in the Paris-Dakar truck class for a few years. He went to DAF and basically told them that if he was allowed, he could make an endurance rally winner. Oh, no. Not a class winner in the truck category. An outright winner… The powers that be, agreed.

He developed a space framed giant. The TurboTwin (later the TurboTwin 2 but we’ll get to that). This was a handbuilt aluminium race truck built specifically to take the punishment of the worlds toughest rally. Although it was aluminium underneath it’s bodywork, just due to its size the truck was heavy. It needed a powerplant to really get it moving. And if one was good, then 2 was better. TurboTwin was fitted with not one, but two 11.6-litre inline 6 diesel engines for each axle being force fed air with turbos as big as a medium sized apartments.

Image: Unknown (Credit?)

The results were well over 1000BHP and around 3000ft/lbs of torque to move the 10 ton mammoth. This thing sounded like it had been sent straight from the 7th circle of hell to bring us the end times, but to us petrolheads it couldn’t have been further from it.

As we said, DAF and de Rooy had history together having been the Dutchman’s preferred ride for the European/African continent dash.

At the 1986 Dakar, the truck performed well. It scared the living Christ out of people and proved that DAF built some serious kit. de Rooy’s team had kept the truck going and doing really well until in the 4th from last stage, a front axle broken and forced them to retire the TurboTwin.

Not to be disheartened, de Rooys and DAF vowed to be back the next year with an even stronger and more impressive truck. One that even to this day is revered and feared, the heavyweight champion of the world - the DAF TurboTwin 2!

True to his word, de Rooy went back to the workshop and began to make the truck even more of everything for the 1988 Paris-Dakar.

The biggest change, apart from stronger axles, was that each engine was fitted with an extra turbo for a total of per truck. The mammoth would have a sequential turbo system whereby a one turbo is used to feed another to help power response. This meant the new truck would have around 1200BHP but more importantly around 3500 lbs/ft of torque.

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While in the workshop, de Rooy’s team made entirely new bodywor and fitted it with new, lighter wheels. All of this was proven in testing when the 10-ton truck could launch itself from a standstill to 62MPH in 8 seconds… and all out you’d be doing around 140MPH.

This new heavyweight weapon was named the TurboTwin X1 and de Rooy would be its master. Along with the all new truck, a TwinTurbo2 from the previous year was also upgraded to lunatic spec as a sister truck called X2.

At the 1988 race, the team arrived with the trucks. Everyone trembled beneath the mighty DAF’s…

The team were going strong as they headed deeper into the desert. The X1 and X2 showing just how fast and rugged they were when caught overtaking the Peugeot 405 T16’s on the flats.

On the 8th stage of the race, X1 had gained itself 3rd place overall. X2 however wouldn’t be so lucky. The truck barrel rolled at enormous speeds and tore itself to shreds.

Sadly, in doing so, it threw its navigator straight out of the wreckage as it tumbled. All of the crew were badly injured but Kees Van Loevezijn would succumb to his injuries from being thrown from the truck.

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After the accident, DAF ordered that the trucks be pulled from competition which they immediately were. de Rooy apparently punching the steering wheel so hard when he heard the news he shattered his fingers. de Rooy wouldn’t return to racing until 2002.

In 1989, the rules changed. Trucks could now only play a support role to the cars, bikes and buggies. They couldn’t race… and they had a speed restriction.

So, let’s all just sit back and admire the engineering and sheer human fascination with this thing. The DAF TurboTwin X1.