We saw the Dacia Duster concept car at this year's
Geneva Motor Show; we've seen an ice-racing Duster and now the production version has finally been revealed. The new car is based on the same platform as the Dacia Logan, but has apparently been designed to offer genuine off-road ability. It is aimed at buyers in Europe and emerging markets (such as Russia and Brazil) who want an affordable yet functional four-wheel drive vehicle.
The body is designed to look like a large, tough 4x4. It has big wheel arches, a huge chrome grille and a sump guard. The appearance belies the Dacia's compact dimensions though. With a length of 4.31 metres and width of 1.82 metres the Duster is slightly smaller than a
Ford Focus.
Underneath there is a four-wheel drive system with three-mode control sourced from Nissan. In AUTO mode torque is divided between the front and rear axles depending on the available grip, with up to 50 percent of the torque available to the rear wheels in low-grip conditions. LOCK mode is designed for snow, mud, sand and other difficult surfaces and locks the transmission into four-wheel drive with a fixed 50/50 split of torque. In 4x2 mode, no power is sent to the rear axle for reduced fuel consumption when driving on good roads. Dacia will also offer a two-wheel drive variant for customers who want a car with lots of ground clearance and high driving position but don't need the extra traction.
One petrol and two diesel engines are offered; the petrol unit has 108bhp while the diesels (dCi) come with either 84- or 104bhp. Thanks to low weight the two-wheel drive diesel Duster has CO
2 emissions of less than 140g/km and the 4x4 model is below 150g/km.
Dacia will launch the Duster from spring 2010 in Europe, Turkey, Algeria and Morocco. Cars for these markets will be supplied from the company's Romanian factory, which will also build Renault-badged Dusters for some African markets (from June 2010). In 2011 production will start in Brazil for Central and South American customers. There is still no word on the Dacia brand coming to the UK, but we believe it will happen.
