The DAF Variomatic: the little Dutch car that changed gear with belts.
In 1958 a Dutch trailer and lorry maker showed its first car. It had no gear lever in the usual sense and no clutch pedal: just two rubber belts running over pulleys that changed size as you drove. Here is how Hub van Doorne’s Variomatic worked, which cars had it, what Volvo did with it, and how the idea lives on, with every fact linked to its source and the tall tales checked.
The Variomatic and its cars, not DAF Trucks. DAF had been advised to separate cars from lorries; the truck side carried on under its own name. DAF Club: history DAF Trucks has belonged to the American firm Paccar since 1996. Driven to Write
This site is about Hub van Doorne’s belt transmission and the DAF and Volvo cars that used it, from 1958 to 1991. DAF’s lorries are backstory here, and today’s CVTs appear only as the idea’s descendants. It is not a buyer’s guide: for a particular car, ask an owners’ club.
The short version
DAF showed its first car, the 600, at the Amsterdam motor show in February 1958. It drove through two rubber belts, and the DAF Club calls the Variomatic the first car CVT ever to enter production. DAF Club: history
The Variomatic was Hub van Doorne’s invention. He founded DAF with his brother Wim, six years younger; Hub was the inventor, and Wim had the head for business. Martijn Lak
Each pulley is a pair of cone-shaped discs. Move the discs apart and the belt sinks to a small diameter; push them together and it rides out to a large one. DAF Club: Variomatic The belt cannot change length, so when it climbs in one pulley it is forced down in the other. That swap of diameters is the gear change. DAF Club: Variomatic
There were only two pedals, accelerator and brake: the driver just steered, pressed the throttle and braked. Martijn Lak
By the end of that first show, DAF had 4,000 orders. Martijn Lak
Historian Martijn Lak puts the total at about 820,000 DAF cars before the name was dropped after 1975. Martijn Lak
In 1975 DAF’s car division became Volvo Car BV. Volvo Cars Volvo kept building belt-driven cars until 1991, and the very last car of the 340 range was fitted with the CVT as a nod to its DAF roots. DAF Club: Volvo 340
Van Doorne’s Transmissie in Tilburg, founded in 1972 and bought by Bosch in 1995, made pushbelts for CVTs and reached 100 million of them in 2024. Bosch
Explore the story
The storyA blacksmith’s son, a trailer firm and a car built round a gearbox.
How it workedBelts, cone-shaped pulleys, spinning weights and engine suction.
The carsFrom the 600 to the Volvo 340, and a rally to Sydney.
What happenedVolvo, a steel belt, and Bosch’s 100 million pushbelts.
Tile pictures are credited on their pages and on the credits page.