Prime Minister Rutte unveils the millionth DAF truck
Prime Minister Mark Rutte was on hand when the millionth DAF truck rolled off the assembly line in the company's Eindhoven factory. The 8,000-person company produces about 140 trucks daily.
Prime Minister Rutte praised the success of DAF as being proof that the manufacturing industry in the Netherlands certainly has a future.
"The millionth DAF truck manufactured in Eindhoven is the millionth piece of evidence that the Van Doorne brothers recipe still works," Prime Minister said in his speech at the factory, referring to the company's founders.
The millionth truck was sold in a batch of trucks to Hungarian Révész Group, who has been very pleased with the Dutch lorries, the company said in a statement.
"Besides the highest driving comfort, reliability and low operating costs are our main buying criteria. DAF knows how to combine all these requirements with each other, which is why our fleet consists of almost 100 percent of DAF trucks," the CEO Bálint Révész of Révész Group said in DAF's press release.
DAF is the market leader in the Dutch truck market with a share of approximately 30 percent. Across Europe, the company holds a market share of 15 percent.
The truck company was founded in 1928 when brothers Hub and Wim van Doorne started a machinery factory. Truck production started in 1949.
DAF went bankrupt in 1993 but started over under a new name "DAF Trucks" a few weeks later, this time building trucks only. Three years later the American truck manufacturer PACCAR took the company over and is still in charge of DAF.
