Since there seems to be a rage of quirky off-roadyness here lately, I thought I'd chip in with how the Dutch have interpreted the go-anywhere mentality.
You may know DAF as the company that made little variomatic driven cars throughout the 60's and 70's. And they of course had a truck subsidiary that makes trucks until the this very day.
Few know about their YA division, which worked on vehicles for the Dutch military. Following the same odd yet inspired thinking that fuelled their passenger car division in 1968 they came up with this:
The Pony. What looks like a table on wheels is actually a wondrously sophisticated design.
Following the US design of the 'Mechanical Mule', the basic layout was two driven live axles and a flat structure on top. The driver/crumple zone sat on the edge of the tabletop, fiercely hoping he wouldn't crash into something.
The interesting bit comes when you notice the tiny car only has two pedals.
This is because of DAF's own belt drive Variomatic CVT, nestled between the two axles.
Drive was provided by a transversely mounted dinky 850cc flat twin and Variomatic straight out of the production DAF 44, unleashing about 35 firebreathing thoroughbreds onto the unsuspecting battleground.
The Variomatic, with its infinite number of gears, was the ace up the Pony's sleeve. The system always produces the right gear ratio according to load and engine power, which makes uphill driving easy and efficient. Also if a wheel loses drive it automatically changes up until there's little enough torque for the wheel to handle, acting as a primitive traction control. This made the strange little vehicle very capable in the mud.
Although spectacularly awesome the Pony sadly wasn't successful, and in the end only a few hundred were made.
This doesn't change the fact that I fiercely want one. And looking at the plans it seems making one out of a rusted through 44 and some axles off of a Suzuki SJ seems entirely doable.
Summer project anyone?
You may know DAF as the company that made little variomatic driven cars throughout the 60's and 70's. And they of course had a truck subsidiary that makes trucks until the this very day.
Few know about their YA division, which worked on vehicles for the Dutch military. Following the same odd yet inspired thinking that fuelled their passenger car division in 1968 they came up with this:
The Pony. What looks like a table on wheels is actually a wondrously sophisticated design.
Following the US design of the 'Mechanical Mule', the basic layout was two driven live axles and a flat structure on top. The driver/crumple zone sat on the edge of the tabletop, fiercely hoping he wouldn't crash into something.
The interesting bit comes when you notice the tiny car only has two pedals.
This is because of DAF's own belt drive Variomatic CVT, nestled between the two axles.
Drive was provided by a transversely mounted dinky 850cc flat twin and Variomatic straight out of the production DAF 44, unleashing about 35 firebreathing thoroughbreds onto the unsuspecting battleground.
The Variomatic, with its infinite number of gears, was the ace up the Pony's sleeve. The system always produces the right gear ratio according to load and engine power, which makes uphill driving easy and efficient. Also if a wheel loses drive it automatically changes up until there's little enough torque for the wheel to handle, acting as a primitive traction control. This made the strange little vehicle very capable in the mud.
Although spectacularly awesome the Pony sadly wasn't successful, and in the end only a few hundred were made.
This doesn't change the fact that I fiercely want one. And looking at the plans it seems making one out of a rusted through 44 and some axles off of a Suzuki SJ seems entirely doable.
Summer project anyone?
