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A special and rare version of the DAF 66 is this 66 YA model. Here seen in civilian guise, but it originally was a military vehicle. The Dutch army asked DAF in the early seventies to develop a cheap alternative to its usual Jeeps. The Jeeps were very useful, but also expensive to buy and to maintain. And the army concluded that they were most often used for normal road duties that didn't demand any terrain abilities. So to stop squandering money on all-terrain vehicles in military units that didn't need them, they decided to replace them by cheaper two wheel drive cars.After a period of testing the DAF 66 YA was introduced in the Dutch army in 1974. It was designated a light truck 0.4 ton 4 x 2. Unfortunately it wasn't a big success. It had the same mechanics as the normal 66, but was heavier (860 kg instead of 820 kg) and had a more sturdy Variomatic transmission. Even so this transmission proved to be the weak spot of the car.The soldiers in the Dutch army, largely made up of conscripts, lived up to their reputation of wrecking everything they laid their hands on, and the belts in the Variomatic transmission were the first to go in the DAF 66 YA. The army chiefs didn't like the idea of a whole fleet of 66 YAs stranded by belt-failures each week and called off the orders.This way only 1201 DAF 66 YAs were built, all in 1974. Most of these cars were sold to civilians by the Dutch army after a few years of service. These civilians painted the originally mat dark green bodywork in an appealing bright color, fitted some additional creature comforts like better seats and created by doing so a kind of a leisure car like the one shown here.
