This Diminutive DAF Is The Granddaddy Of All Wedge Supercars

Before the Lamborghini Countach, before the Lancia Stratos Zero, before the Pininfarina Modulo, there was this, the DAF 55 Siluro, a silver wedge with a 1.1-liter Renault engine and a stepless, fully automatic transmission. After it was shown at the 1968 Geneva Motor Show, the world of supercars would never be the same.

Yeah, it's a DAF. DAF used to make road cars until 1975. This one's based on the 55, a small family car built between 1967 and 1972. Back then, "small" meant really, really small: the 55 weighed all of 1,687 pounds.

This spaceship wedge was a concept created by the 55's Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti (its name means torpedo in Italian). Mechanically, the 55 Siluro was identical to the production 55, but the shape was like a spark set to the contemporary idea of what a supercar should look like. European superminis would never look like this, but Michelotti's dramatic wedge spelled the end of the sensuous, curvy '60s supercar and gave us the Countach, the Stratos, the Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer, shapes which were a radical break with the past, and shapes which dominate supercar design to this day: just look at the Lamborghini Aventador.

After the car was shown at the 1968 Geneva Motor Show, Giovanni Michelotti kept it until his death in 1980, when his son inherited it, who used it as a garden ornament, according to a story by Anthony Hazelaar of AutoRAI. The car has since been restored by DAF and is on display at the company museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands.