DACIA JOGGER
Whe Dacia Jogger is 2023’s unexpected hero. You can bet your house that the latest Porsche GT car is going to be sensational, but a budget seven-seater could easily end up being worthy but forgettable. Instead, the Jogger really punches above its weight.
Given the rampant rise in the cost of living over the past year, the Jogger is particularly relevant for families. It offers all the space and utility you need, including a genuinely usable third row of seats, for significantly less money than most standard hatchbacks. It would be a worthy recipient of our Best Budget Car award, were it not for another Dacia winning it. And it’s not as if Jogger drivers have to give up a lot of creature comforts. Yes, the plastics are hard, and no, you don’t get expensive-feeling leather on the seats, but Dacia has grown adept at brightening up its interiors with a strip of fabric here and a bit of faux knurled aluminium there. Go for one of the still reasonably priced higher trims and you get heated seats, cruise control, navigation and infotainment set-ups that work more logically than many fancier systems. What truly makes the Jogger a great car is that it drives so much better than it needs to. The 1.0-litre engine is familiar from the Renault Clio and Captur, and while it hardly provides scintillating performance, it’s happy to rev, and the standard six-speed manual gearbox means making the most of all 118bhp is more pleasure than pain. If you must have an automatic transmission, the recently introduced hybrid model returns very impressive economy.
The suspension is equally well resolved. While soft springs and tall tyre sidewalls provide old-fashioned ride comfort in the best French tradition, the Jogger also holds its own in the corners. The steering is nicely weighted and the chassis has enough inherent balance to make this seven-seater decent fun to drive on a twisty road.
Some families might instantly discount the Jogger at the sight of its one-star Euro NCAP rating, but they would be missing out. Rather than a blatantly unsafe car, the Jogger protects its occupants perfectly well in a crash. However, Euro NCAP marked it down for the absence of some active safety systems. Given that such systems can at time be less than helpful, and the ones that the Jogger does have (ABS, ESC, automatic emergency braking and lane keeping assistance) are mostly unintrusive, it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker for most buyers. The enduring feeling is that the Jogger is so much better at everything it does than it has any right to be given the amount of money Dacia charges for it. When a family SUV can easily top £50,000 with a few options, the Jogger demonstrates that you needn’t pay more for a practical family car that’s nice to drive.
The Jogger is so much better than it has any right to be