I thought this would be of some interest, even though it's not public transport. I came across this on Anzac Pde and had no idea DAF were still selling trucks on the Australian market. They have never been a prolific seller here. You just see them occasionally which means they must be a niche player here.
**Apologies for the over exposed picture. Must get a phone with a better camera by year's end.**

Yes, they do sell them here, but they're still nowhere near as common as the other European truck manufacturers. There have been 4000 DAFs sold in Australia as of May 2016, according to their website: http://www.daf.com.au/paccar-australia- ... daf-truck/

4000 under Paccar since 1996. DAF had a small presence in Australia well before that, but was a very rare sight on our roads.

Passing Arncliff/Wolli creek yesterday the DAF sign below the kenworth sign a few on display.

^that tells the story. Kenworth is Paccar's prime mover leader in Australia where DAF is the one in Europe.
Why do truck makers have to be whopping empires these days??

Swift wrote:^that tells the story. Kenworth is Paccar's prime mover leader in Australia where DAF is the one in Europe.
Why do truck makers have to be whopping empires these days??

Money.

DAF is pretty much the spiritual successor to Leyland.

^^Their engines were basically Leyland 0680s up untile the 1990s. DAF did such a good job modernising them, you could barely tell from listening.
I saw another DAF CF today in prime mover form carting a Woolworths trailer.

That is a very good point about the DAF engine (of that period) being basically an updated Leyland 680. Bova coaches had that DAF engine, as you say "quiet", but also quite powerful. We often wondered why on earth Leyland did not update the 680.

Didn't the 680 morph into the TL11?

boronia wrote:Didn't the 680 morph into the TL11?

Yes. You could say it was Leyland's own parallel modernising effort of the 0680. I was told BL incorporated some design features from AEC's 505 engine (mainly the heads I believe) to make the TL11 run smoother than the 0680 and added turbocharging for emissions and more HP. Leyland also turbo charged AEC's AV760 motor at the same time to come up with the Leyland TL12 which was used on their trucks in the early 1980s.
The DAF was more of a success because they spent more money and R&D on thoroughly modernising the power plant as much as could be achieved. Leyland really should have just arranged to use DAF's version of their own motor in their truck range in the end.

This DAF prime mover today backed in at Woy Woy McDonald's.

This was a 5 axle DAF tipper at a truck show earlier in the year

One thing that disappoints me about these modern DAFs jus their generic styling. You could almost slap any badge on them. The DAFs of old were readily identifiable.
Actually, apart from some like Volvo and perhaps Scania and Kenworth, you can say the same of most other truck makes. Like Hollywood, they are running out of ideas. Maybe they could do another Hollywood practice and do remakes of older styles ala VW, Mini and Fiat.

I read somewhere Paccar are now building DAFs in Australia at their Bayswater plant.

E.L.Wood wrote:I read somewhere Paccar are now building DAFs in Australia at their Bayswater plant.

Good to see some manufacturing going on. Australia should be a manufacturing hub and stop this dependency on the northern hemisphere for our goods. South Korea would have non if it.

E.L.Wood wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 2:14 pm I read somewhere Paccar are now building DAFs in Australia at their Bayswater plant.

Only a select few models - I think the CF series is the main one!

Swift wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:47 pm

E.L.Wood wrote:I read somewhere Paccar are now building DAFs in Australia at their Bayswater plant.

Good to see some manufacturing going on. Australia should be a manufacturing hub and stop this dependency on the northern hemisphere for our goods. South Korea would have non if it.

Manufactured here, or assembled using foreign components?

boronia wrote: ↑Fri Aug 21, 2020 7:23 pm

Swift wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 3:47 pm
Good to see some manufacturing going on. Australia should be a manufacturing hub and stop this dependency on the northern hemisphere for our goods. South Korea would have non if it.

Manufactured here, or assembled using foreign components?

I posted that two years ago (might as well have been 20). A bit late coming.