Dacia planning £5,000 city car
Credits: Poblete
Exclusive images show look of booming brand’s new baby, based on current Renault Twingo
Dacia has been confirmed as the fastest-growing car brand ever to hit the UK – and it’s planning to build on this by launching its cheapest ever model.
The range currently kicks off at £5,995 for the Sandero, but this all-new, smaller car – revealed in our exclusive images – is set to start at around £5,000.
So, how do you produce a brand new car for the price of a 10-year-old second-hand VW Golf? Well, for a start Dacia plans to borrow an existing platform from the outgoing Renault Twingo.
Renault is replacing the city car, using a brand new, rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive architecture, so it makes sense to squeeze some more life from the old car’s underpinnings in a Dacia model. The Sandero already performs this trick, as it’s based on a MkIII Clio platform – but this chassis can’t go any smaller.
Image: Poblete
Brand development director Rafel Treguer has always said Dacia will consider moving into any class of the market if there’s sufficient volume. And there’s clearly a solid case to be made for low-cost models, if you look at the forthcoming Suzuki Celerio city car and the sub-£7,000 model Vauxhall is planning as an Agila replacement.
Dacia will be hoping to keep build costs down, too, and is planning to use alliance partner Lada’s factory in Togliatti, Russia. Not only does this have spare capacity, but it will allow Dacia to produce cars to a budget.
Expect to see the new model arrive late next year, with the most basic versions featuring steel wheels and unpainted bumpers. All cars will get airbags, ESP and ABS, but buyers will have to shell out extra if they want electric windows, central locking, alloy wheels and even a radio.
Rise and rise of Dacia
Dacia is the UK’s fastest-growing car brand ever, going from a zero per cent market share to 1.4 per cent in only 10 months. Ken Ramirez, managing director of Renault and Dacia UK, told us a significant proportion of Dacia buyers are coming from the used car market. Despite its budget prices, the top-spec Laureate front-wheel-drive Duster is the brand’s biggest-selling model.
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Blimey they really are trying to tempt people away from the used car market with these prices... Im guessing this old platform will come with modern engines?!
Hope it is offered with the 0.9 TCe turbopetrol.
The look is attractive!
Or the excellent 1.6 dCi. I guess I just dreaming :)
They really need to put the 1.6 dCi in the Duster!
Not the best cars in crash testing
Even in this article, AE can't help themselves from mentioning VW. Seriously!! The credibility of reviews is getting ridiculous.
Anyway, as for the car - sounds great. Good honest cheap to buy and run motoring, what's not to like?
They won't. Not for 5+ years at least. At least they could bring the facelift version in the UK.
The 1.2 turbo TCe in the new Duster sounds like a sweet spot between the gutless 1.6 petrol in my Duster and the noisy 1.5 dCi.
I think they're going to bring the new one to the UK in 2016.
Probably in 2017-2018 they will have a brand new model in the rest of the world as they have to keep up with the rapid changes in this segment.
This car not even tested or developed yet.
I used the word Cars and this applies to their range.Not one had made 5 star crash testing yet
Actually they have. They get their poorer rating because equipment such as ESP aren't available on base models, of which are judged.
I agree. I think they will probably find a lot of buyers for this. Aside from those ugly black bumpers, this actually looks good.
As long as they get the basic driver and passenger safety right (and there's no reason to doubt they will) I'm sure it will be a good motor. And the Adam ' only' gained a 4 star rating...
Yes Jezz I am 100% certain that it will come with the excellent 0.9 TCi engine, probably the 1.2 petrol and maybe the 1.5 dCi but this could be doubtful in the UK due to the reverse pricing scale in the UK for diesel v petrol as the 0.9 engine is such a good Froogle performer.
As long as it has all the safety kit, and what I consider to be the new basics, ie. A/C, remote locking, Bluetooth, DAB radio and parking sensors, it will be a fair car for 7K.
Realistically I don't see Dacia could produce this car for less than the 5995 Sandero, All current Dacias share a basic platform and many mechanical and body components, which reduces build costs significantly (for example Logan, Sandero and Duster all use the same doors and windows all around). This 3 door model would require investment in developing a different set of components even though they claim to be basing it off the outgoing Twingo, there will not be the economies of scale Dacia gets with the millions of models produced off the current B0 platform. Twingo 2 actually uses the platform of the Clio 2 whereas B0 is based off Clio 3 so it would be dumb to have to work with 2 different platforms. Also such a small car would have limited appeal outside of Western Europe, even in Dacias home market they have never had any success with a tiny 3 door car. Even in communist times they were allowed 4 doors!
"Yes" not a "day" goes past without a mention of VW, Audi,
I have fallen asleep, excuse me BMW etc. However!!!
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