Haven’t you noticed that even though the automakers often leave the official release of their latest cars to the international shows, they’ve started to make their first presentations weeks, sometimes months before? This strategy comes in handy for the simple fact that at the effective shows there are dozens of other cars being revealed at the same time, so making their first appearance only at this moment results in attracting much less attention than expected. Dacia knows that, so now is its time to get the spotlights.
The Logan family’s value for the Renault group is beyond huge, specially for Dacia division. It started at 2004 already as a big surprise, because until then this brand was taking too much seriously the low-budget concept: excepting some participation of the 1990s sedan Nova, which was later renamed as SupeRNova and as Solenza after a face-lift, their main product was 1310, which in turn was the “modernized” version of 1300 – they forced a 1990s front design into a sedan who first appeared, also as Renault 12, in 1969! But this story was about to take an enormous change. Renault projected another low-cost sedan but way more modern, precisely in order to replace 1310, but it ended accomplishing much more than that. Logan surprised the world for its intense focus at lowering the production costs with square and objective design, flat glasses and even its initial rearview mirrors, which were the same piece with symmetrical design to fit both sides. But this odd exterior covered an amazing interior space, which took five occupants so easily that this car started to sell really well. It didn’t took long for Dacia to expand this concept into station wagon, pick-up, cargo and even crossover versions, all of them sold with big success.
In fact, this success became so notorious that started to attract foreign attention. The emergent markets from outside Europe, captained by Brazil, had the clever idea of selling them under another brands in order to provide enough brand reliability wherever Dacia wasn’t present. One of the results of that is Brazil selling Logan and Duster with Renault’s badge and even creating Sandero, which also went to Europe and joined the family at the now huge sales success, at their price levels. Dacia became strong as a low-budget brand, and the Logan family strong as a modern, spacious and non-expensive line of cars, but with one constant complaint: the excessive simplicity. Sandero and Duster at least were born with different style each one at its own way, but it was only a disguise to Logan’s by far biggest problem. If it wasn’t to commercial buyers, it was really hard to sell a car that basic and non-attractive even for a small price. The sales weren’t really stopped by that, but the concern was real. Some years passed and they started to receive the half-life face-lift, but no miracles could be expected. But now they came to the second generation, entirely redesigned and improved, precisely to reduce the flaws and take the best of the original concept to a whole new level.
Logan, Sandero and Duster made an important influence at their respective markets. Although they don’t seduce the ones who wish a beautiful car, their internal space was so big that made all their rivals start to improve themselves at this factor more than originally thought – this can be proved if you take a look at all their youngest competitors’s sales argument list. Therefore, if those three cars raised the bar that high, their next step would have to be big. So how big is to start mentioning that they now share platform with the medium-sized Renault Fluence? This fact is the best start point to explain why you must’ve had the (true) impression that they became much bigger. Dacia deserves the highest compliments for the design section, and for many reasons. The first one is that they not only created new cars who remind their respective previous phases, but also maintained the good parts while erasing the bad ones. Details such as the doors lines and windows and shields scheme weren’t visually changed while the entire body had a better design scheme, adapting what was visually kept to what is new to obtain more harmony. Besides that, a pleasant surprise is that Logan and Sandero, until now only them, finally recognized they belong to the same family: the front design is now the same, as done with most of the hatchbacks and sedans in similar case.
This results at a better and even more elegant style for Logan, while Sandero now stops to look so different from the family, but there’s another reason for doing this. Yes, one more compliment comes for the cleverness at using that as an implicit excuse to improve the parts sharing. From now on, the interior still is the same for both of them but also the entire exterior’s first half, including the front doors – Dacia even found a tail light design who fit two rear styles that different maintaining the visual balance. Until now there aren’t lots of information about them, but the interior surely became even more spacious, due to the new structure. The central console is a good way to show that the evolution at the interior was more at the technology than in design, featuring a big touchscreen to control the sound system and some other functions. When it comes to the engines, it is known that they’ll bring the 1.5 dCi at three power levels, but the gasoline option will be made by the 1.2 TCe of 115 hp. Of course, both these cars are intensely expected to be sold at the emergent markets as soon as possible.
