Page 70 - Demo

Decades of
Story Wayne Munro
Above: A brand-new XF105 and a late 1950s vintage A1800 pose outside DAF HQ to mark the 90th anniversary Opposite page: e truck production line in 1950. It turned out a dozen three-tonne, 5t and 6t trucks daily
IT’S 90 YEARS SINCE DAF HAD ITS BEGINNINGS IN THE pleased with Lees dealing with another make. That prompted a
Netherlands....
And it’s 19 years since PACCAR’s European make was officially
launched here in New Zealand...
But it was another nine years earlier, in 1990, when the first
bulk shipment of DAF trucks arrived in the country, somewhat controversially: They ended up being mothballed, apparently because of a commercial wrangle.
Former Auckland transport operator Kerry Bowman, who ended- up owning five of the 330 ATi model DAFs, reckons that 27 of them were imported by then Kenworth agent Lees Power...wearing Leyland badges.
This was legit, since the Dutch company had bought the British truckmaker in 1990 and had relaunched the Leyland Roadtrain model in Britain using the DAF 330 ATi engine.
But this was fully six years before Kenworth’s parent company PACCAR bought DAF – and PACCAR was reportedly less than
62 | Truck & Driver
lengthy delay, with the entire shipment parked-up in storage. Eventually – about two years after they arrived, according to
Bowman – the trucks were sold into a lease and rental operation, with many of the 330 ATis ending up running in the Transport Wairarapa and Hilton Haulage fleets.
Bowman bought his first of them off TR Group in 1997 – beginning a relationship with the make that led to him buying 14 DAFs...and sees him now, in semi-retirement, delivering them (along with Kenworths) to new truck buyers around the country, on behalf of current NZ distributor Southpac Trucks.
He reckons that the 330-horsepower DAF-engined 330 ATis, which ran 13-speed Roadranger manual gearboxes and DAF highway diffs, were “bloody nice trucks mate.
“Yes, they were beautiful to drive. Very comfortable and very easy to drive. Pretty basic – but you could drive them all day long.”
The engines too were strong: “Mate they could pull. You could