Dacia delivers a big bang for your buck
...they still wouldn’t be as big a bargain as the Dacia Duster. No bells, no whistles – just HVFM (Huge Value For Money)
My latest new old car is a magnificent, chrome-bumpered, 1976 Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible. I think Rollers have become quite cool of late. Originally intended as a stopgap until I could locate a similar model Bentley, I think this Rolls has become a keeper, since inveigling her way deep into my heart.
Sure, like all ladies of a certain age she has issues that need to be addressed. She struggles with a damp, cold start for example, and the damper and colder the night before the more grumpy she turns out to be the next morning. Her clock is currently stuck in a moment it can’t get out of – 10.55 and 54 seconds to be precise – although as any Withnail
And I fan worth their salt knows, ‘even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day’.
Her wipers are next on the TLC list, hailing more from the school of jazz-improv than that of the far more metronomic A Tune A Day.
All of which, of course, can and will be rectified. I’m very much looking forward to spending a cosy and luxuriant winter deep within her ample bosom.
What I’m not looking forward to so much at the moment, however, is the daily post. I suspect The Corniche may have an incorrectly calibrated speedometer, which led to me (maybe) inadvertently speeding not once, but twice on the way to work on the same day last week. I await the investigation into what I can only presume is the old girl’s dodgy ticker but, in the meantime, while I’m still able (potential further points on my licence now pending), I’d better get on with reviewing this week’s car, the unglamorous Dacia Duster, a car so nondescript I’ve already forgotten what it looked like.
What I haven’t forgotten, however, is the amazingly thrifty on-the-road price of this HVFM (Huge Value For Money) vehicle (from circa €16,000) and consequently its meteoric rise in popularity over the last few years. If cars were discount supermarkets, Dacia would have Aldi and Lidl where Aldi and Lidl currently have Tesco et al. Dacia may not do finesse, but it does do brilliant grass-roots bang-for-your-buck value with no frills and the lowest bills. And the thing about such an approach is that it reaps goodwill in spades, because customers know they’re not paying for the fancy-schmancy, and so don’t mind when it’s not forthcoming.
The almost random shiny black bits of trim, for example, among a patchwork of faux quilted panels, become ‘ a nice touch’ as opposed to plain, cheap and nasty. The underwhelmingly basic two-tone plastic dash suddenly seems hard-wearing and durable rather than shapeless and basic. Just as all the knobs and switches, still rough from the mould, take on a more no-nonsense character than that of mass-produced lowquality tat.
Even things that are really properly rubbish fail to rile, like the angle at which the main dials are set. This is so idiotically obtuse it means they’re so far back in their own shadow that they are more or less always in complete darkness. Equally dire is the demister, which struggled feebly with several earlymorning fogged-up windscreen situations. Then there’s the weird petrol filler flap that is so needlessly huge it takes up a quarter of the offside rear wing for no discernible reason whatsoever.
But despite all this, can you guess what I might be about to say next? I imagine most of you can... I absolutely love this car.
I have a soft spot for these valuefor-money specials in the first place, but in the Duster I see the vanguard. Not only does she do everything she needs to from a driving point of view while delivering a whole heap of miles to the gallon in the process, but here are just some of the things you get as standard. Hugely comfy big seats in the front, complemented by
a fairly gen-
DACIA MAY NOT DO FINESSE, BUT IT DOES DO BANG FOR YOUR BUCK VALUE
erous three-person bench seat in the back. Ample boot space, with all the usual fold-down and parcelshelf options, plus a – shock horror – full-size spare wheel, super-rare nowadays. And how about: the cool logo’d full-length roof rack rails, the mud-friendly massive flared wheel arches, the rear windscreen wiper and wash, four-wheel drive, the biggest digital clock this side of Nasa and the easiest audio system to operate since my mum’s World War II mixing bowl crystal radio.
Even Dacia’s press pack is superbasic and super-informative. On white A4 paper, not even stapled together (as opposed to the usual glossy embossed brochure that makes you feel guilty when you
throw it away), it told me everything I wanted to know in refreshingly plain and simple language. All of it concise and numpty-friendly, all of it relevant. There’s the HOW section, where they even cover how to pronounce Dacia. Answer: Datch-ya, if you’re interested.
I love stuff like this that makes one feel vaguely more intelligent than a minute before. After HOW there’s WHAT,WHERE,WHENandWHYto dive into. There’s even a MYTHS section to scotch such scurrilous rumours as ‘Dacias just use outdated technology and equipment from old Renaults’. I don’t think so, and good for them.
I could go on and woo you with more technical stuff about why you should buy this car, but you could always log on to Dacia’s website. Guess what that section’s called? MORE TECHNICAL STUFF.
It doesn’t get any more gloriously unpretentious than that. Genius.