Have you ever really looked at a DAF 44? I think they’re very attractive little cars, with an interesting grille-less face. It looks like a rear-engined car, but it’s not – the little 844cc air-cooled flat-twin is up front there. That’s ok, though: the belt-and-cone-type Variomatic CVT setup for the transmission gives the car all the weirdness it needs.
But I wanted to use this image today because of the background, which feature some blurry lights that have a very particular “bokeh” look about them, where a background blurs into discrete, bold, often colorful shapes. The word is of Japanese origin, meaning, basically “blurry,” and was first applied to photography in the 1990s.
That means this is a pre-bokeh example of bokeh! What a magical world we live in, right?
My first car was a Volvo 66, which is basically a DAF 66 built by Volvo after Volvo bought the DAF-factory in Born. But because it was Volvo the 66 had to meet higher safety standards, which meant thicker bumpers, a safer steering wheel and such. So, the front was typically Volvo, but from the side it was still a DAF.. Loved that car; it coud do it’s maximum speed in reverse thanks to the CVT..
I can’t find it now but another image from this brochure features ghost luggage in many bright colors slowly floating in and out of the trunk where you think the engine should live. It’s a striking image. So much so that I printed it out and taped it above my work desk last year.
Very succinct observation, Torch.
A friend bought me a book chronicling the history of DAF, in Dutch, which I cannot read. Neat pictures, though.
David Tracy once touched my DAF in a parking lot in Stanwood, WA, but instead of a light show all I got was a discussion about tire sizes.
Bokeh bokeh is also the noise it makes
I see what you did there.
Jason, There is a DAF museum in Einhoven, NL. You would love all the weirdness on display. Just don’t touch the stuff (especially engines). I was doing this and then an announcement would be made (in Dutch). I repeated my errant behavior several times, then suddenly “There is no touching the displays” came over the loudspeakers. Hey, it was fun!
I love that museum. It might be the best single marque car museum in the world. So much fascinating stuff and really tells the story of the company. I guess I didn’t touch anything when I was there because I wasn’t admonished over loudspeakers. But, I would have loved to get in the little raincoat car at the entrance. That thing is so cool.
March 32nd was a special day, also here in the Netherlands. The way The Autopian was brought made me ensured it wouldn’t take long before a DAF would appear on here.
To make things a little more exciting and entertaining I advice you all to google the words “achteruitrijden” en “DAF”. The first result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoh8i0jfpTo
Have fun with DAF!
That was awesome. At first I thought someone just loaded the film in backwards, but nope!
I shouldn’t have licked that frog. Now I keep seeing this tiny car as I drift in and out of consciousne…
In this case, I thing this is less a case of Bokeh and more a case of “forgetting to clean year fingers before developing the film” but still a design breakthrough.
My Father came very late to the whole driving thing and never learned how to drive a car with a manual gearbox (In the UK this is rare, and your drivers license is for automatics only). In his early sixties he learned to drive in a DAF. When he died, thirty years later, he still drove…….a DAF!
He had no idea how difficult it became to find him a replacement car, but over the years I have looked at more DAFs than is strictly healthy.
My dad had a DAF in the 70s. I remember being fascinated by its magic gearbox.
The nickname for that gearbox was “Het pientere pookje”, sort of “the little clever stick”.
My 66 GL sedan has stickers in the side windows which read “Hoe pienter is úw pookje?” which is to say “How sharp is your stick?”
I’ve been messing around with an old Nikon Reflex-Nikkor 500mm ƒ/8 I bought cheap. It’s a camera lens with mirrors like some telescopes (catadioptric). The bokeh (a word which didn’t exist in English when the lens was made, but it was made in Japan so we’re covered) is, well, quite ugly if not controlled properly. It makes blurry circles that can be literally nauseating. Happily, there are tricks to reduce or eliminate that.
I’ve enjoyed playing with the 500 so much that I’ve got a Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm ƒ/11 on the way now. It cost twice as much as the 500, a fact which amused me.
This makes me wonder – years from now, what’ll we think of as the car ad graphic style of today?
I fear it’ll be just photo realistic portrayal of people loading/unloading outdoor activity equipment into their SUV or construction supplies into their pickup.
Car ads always telegraphed lifestyle of course, but seems like today, that’s all they do.
It’ll be cars with their wheels in motion but no driver.
And the seats full of people typing on their phones
Ahh… true bokeh. So much better than the blah-ness that modern cell phones try to give you through emulation.
Can’t say much about the car, unfortunately?