The economical situation and the success of the Daf trucks made it possible for Hub van Doorne to realize his dream: production of a luxury car. He wanted to develop a car that was affordable by the common man. He wanted to equip the car with an automatic gearbox, because he loved it in his Buick Dynaflow. But such a traditional transmission was too big and too complex to fit in a small car. In the winter of 1954 Hub van Doorne had the idea to use belts, just like many of the machines in the factory that were belt-driven. The first draughts date from February 1955. Hub van Doorne contemplated a 250 cc two-cylinder engine in the back to propel the back axle directly by means of belts. The idea was hard to realize in practice. The next proposal was a threeseater with a 250 cc two-cylinder in the front and the transmission underneath the backseat, driven the rear wheels. Hub liked this project, called 355, but his brother Wim thought the car was too small.

They decided to build a fourseater, and project 455 got underway. In the meantime, the development of the variomatic transmission continued. In February 1956, an experimental version of it was built into a Lloyd LP400. This car was used for extensive testing, and because the outward appearance was unchanged, the car didn´t attract attention. In September 1955 the designer W. van den Brink presented a design for a fourseater. It was decided to maintain it´s lines, but to make it larger. On the 9th of Semptember 1956 the first car was ready. In 1957 a batch of pre-production cars was built for publicity reasons mainly. The car was presented to the public on the Dutch car show (the AutoRAI) in February 1958. The reactions where overwhelming, 4.000 cars were ordered. On the 23rd of March, the first two production cars rolled of the assembly line.