Renault’s design boss, Laurens van den Acker, says the firm will phase out the use of Renault-badged Dacia models in certain markets – a move that he says will free up the Romanian brand’s cars to take on more individual designs.
Dacia models such as the Dacia Duster, Logan, Sandero Stepway and Dokker are sold as Renaults in markets such as Russia, Mexico, South Africa and India.
“My goal is to have a unique global Renault line-up,” said van den Acker. “Cars that are Renault derivatives of Dacias, I want that to stop.
“I can’t argue with the business sense to do it, because Renaults were expensive for some markets and Dacias were relatively modern cars that were reliable and affordable, so we rebadged them. It helped us gain a foot in those markets. But now we start to sell more cars in markets such as Russia, we will start to differentiate.”
The Russian-market Kaptur – which looks similar to the Renault Captur SUV but is a larger car built on a Duster platform – was the first Renault developed specially for emerging markets, followed by the recently unveiled Arkana crossover.
The one Renault-badged Dacia that will remain is the Duster because it is one of the firm’s bestselling cars in most markets, said van den Acker. The second-generation Duster is currently being introduced around the world.
Van den Acker added that phasing out Renault-badged Dacia models will further liberate the design of future Dacias. He said that the “next-generation Dacia is going to be great”, adding: “We’ll try to be clever. I’m pushing Renault to be very Latin and sensual, and Dacia to be Germanic and robust. This strategy is working great for us.”
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@Andrew1
You don't understand what i meant to say, i don't say Dacia is French because belongs to Renault, i said Dacia is french because they always made franch cars, Dacia never built a car of their own very different fron Vauxhall, Dacia always made Renault's it's DNA is Renault!
...except that they did build their own
Apart from derivatives of the original R12 - they had a 4x4 pickup and even a coupe - Dacia did engineer two cars from zero: the Lăstun and the Nova. Also, today they build their own models, whereas Vauxhalls are just rebadged Opels.
@RF1T
Dacia is the national car in Romania. Yes, they were making Renault clones, but they are a Romanian brand.
Vauxhall is marketing Opel cars with a different badge but few around here regard them as a German brand.
JLR is fully owned by an Indian company but we regard them as British to the bone.
Rolls Roys is owned by BMW and uses BMW technology. So is Mini.
Bentley is VW.
And so on.
Actually, most car manufacturers are owned by various entities from different countries, they build their components in many places and assemble their cars in different locations.
They should be Romanian just like Borat!!!!!
Sorry but if they were true "Romanian" the brand would only be associated with Donkeys pulling trailers & Borat!!!!
jagdavey wrote:
Borat albeit a fictional character, was Kazakh