Dacia will focus on establishing its recently introduced core range before launching any new models, according to its brand director Rafael Treguer.
Speaking to Autocar at the Frankfurt motor show, Treguer said after launching six new models in 2012 and more again in 2013, Renault’s budget arm now needed to “work with this range to increase sales and awareness”.
“Of course in the future we will develop new products, but only ever in volume segments,” said Treguer, pouring cold water on suggestions there would be Renaultsport-developed Dacias or even a Dacia sports car. “We will never do a niche product.”
One possible future model could be a Dacia city car, but this would need to divert from the brand’s strategy of using one platform to underpin all its models and instead be built on a smaller architecture. “It’s a maybe to a small car but it’s too early to say and certainly no decision has been made,” said Treguer.
Instead the firm was focusing its efforts on increasing brand awareness to maintain its nine years of continued growth since it launched in Europe in 2004.
“The brand is still poorly known,” he said. “We need to do more advertising, but in a clever and memorable way as our budgets aren’t huge. We have to make an impact and be seen, perhaps in a humorous way as in the UK, but never in way that would impact on the cost of our cars.”
Dacia could ultimately need a new factory if it continues to grow, admitted Treguer. Its Romanian plant is at capacity and its operations in India and Morocco are expanding fast. “In the near future we will have to see where we are,” he said.
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