How cheap communist car maker became one of Britain's best-selling budget brands

There are a handful of cars that are celebrated for 'putting the world on wheels'.

The Volkswagen Beetle, the Citroen 2CV and the Mini historically gave buyers four wheels for little cash, and in doing so gained huge fame.

Today there's another brand that's making waves doing a similar thing for modern drivers: Dacia.

The Romanian car maker started life as a national manufacturer with a goal to provide reliable and affordable cars to all Romanians - it has since metamorphosed into an unmitigated global success story.

So, how have its cheap cars and back-to-nature branding combined to build up over 8million customers since its 2004 rebrand?

Freda Lewis-Stempel drove the new Dacia Duster around Romania in a bid to understand the brand's gutsy outdoors origins and learn the formula that's led these frugal cars to become worldwide bestsellers.

Dacia was founded in Romania in 1996 under the Romanian Communist Party, with Dacia taking its name from a direct reference to the ancient region of Dacia, which is now part of Romania.

A bit like the Volkswagens of Germany, the objective was clear: to provide modern, reliable and inexpensive cars for all Romanians.

In 1999 Renault took over Dacia, and the mass-market Dacia models recognisable today started to go on sale in Europe.

The Logan saloon came first in 2004, followed by the Sandero and Duster models by 2010.

Costing just €5,000, the Logan revolutionised the automotive market and achieved huge commercial success.

The Sandero and Duster built on this, bringing budget, no frills motoring to city drivers and rural dwellers.

Then in 2013 Dacia launched in the UK, offering families its Sandero supermini for £5,995. That was the same price as a Ford Fiesta in 1989.

The TV proudly said: 'We don't do frivolity, function's our thing'.

Dacia's core branding hasn't changed since then, with the most expensive model on offer today, the Bigster, costing £25,215.

Even in the new electric car market Dacia's setting the benchmark of affordability with its Spring EV.

This small city car has a price tag of £14,995, making it the cheapest electric car in the UK by some mileage.

In fact, the only model in Dacia's six-car line-up that costs over £20,000 is the Bigster, with the entry-point Sandero setting a new car buyer back £14,715.

We know Dacia in the UK for cheap prices, low-running costs, reliability and unashamed functionality, but in its home country what else does Dacia symbolise?

It was 7am on day two of the trip and I was walking along an empty mud road (see below picture) to Bran in the Carpathian Mountains when an elderly woman drove round the bend.

Whether I was more surprised to see her, or her me, I don't know. But what didn't surprise me was that she had absolutely no concerns about tackling a mudslide mountain track in a saloon car from 2004 when it had been raining all night.

Why was she so blasé when British drivers would worry about tackling that very same 'road'? Probably because she was in a Dacia.

Seeing a Dacia at this point was standard. There was no setting, no terrain, no circumstance where there wouldn't be a Dacia.

That's because 60 per cent of Romanians drive a Dacia.

To put that in context, a French Parc Auto survey in 2020 found that French brands make up 62 per cent of French households' fleets. But that includes Renault, Citroen, Peugeot – Renault itself made up 22 per cent.

I had this bonkers three in five stat in my mind before I went to Romania and yet I naively started counting how many Dacias I could spot the first morning I was there.

I counted about 20 in a remote rural village at 3,280ft altitude in less than 60 minutes, and unsurprisingly decided this game was rather futile.

So by the time I saw the speeding grandma on day two I was almost immune to the ubiquitousness of Dacia. It was only to be expected that wherever you'd go, a Dacia would follow.

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It's hard to properly convey what seeing 60 per cent of the same kind of car on the road is like; in the UK the closest you can probably get is that you're surprised in London if you order an Uber and it isn't a Toyota Prius.

But still not even comparable.

Dacia's constant presence in Romania reminds you of the true sense of a car: it's a vehicle to get you from A to B. For so many people in the world, and Romanians in particular, a car is a need and not a want, and it's easy to forget that when you're constantly surrounded by drivers wanting the latest, showiest motors.

Reliability, low running costs, and 4x4 capability are all needed. Chat GPT, 100 ADAS features, heated seats, Wifi and 360 cameras aren't needed. Dacia's popularity hammers this point home incredibly clearly.

And you can't help but be infected with the sense of national pride that Dacia holds in Romania as you drive around the country's jaw-dropping landscape: Dacia is Romania's most famous export and holds great historical and cultural importance in the country.

Providing accessible and reliable vehicles to the Romanian people has made Dacia not just a staple on the roads of Romania but a symbol of Romanian industrial strength and ingenuity.

Romania is the country with the highest number of farmers in the EU, with almost 3.5 million farmers or just over 44 per cent. And 90 per cent of these are small farms of less than 5 hectares.

In an age of industrial farming that's a hugely rare statistic, and it only goes to show how integral small scale farming is to Romanian life.

A website I looked at to learn more about Romania before I went said: 'In rural areas, you will most likely see either a horse yoke or a Dacia'.

Never has information been more accurate. In the mountain Transylvanian areas I saw traditional shepherds and their enormous Mioritic Sheepdogs moving the flocks, cows crossing the roads, horse and carts doing a steady 20mph on the main roads, and Dacias.

If a farmer drove a car it was a Dacia. So, the 60 per cent of Romanians drive a Dacia stat actually goes much deeper - at the heart of it is how these communities and traditions are kept alive thanks to the budget transport Dacia offers Romanian farmers.

And that's what Dacia stays true to in the way it builds and markets its cars - it's all about the wilderness and rural life.

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Dacia's sense of fun goes hand in hand with its rugged origins, and this combination has proved to be a winning one when it comes to advertising its cheap as chips cars.

Commercial campaigns have played humorously on Dacia's lack of luxury, instead flagging up that Dacia does the basics well.

Famous TV adverts include the Sandero ads 'Lawnmower feature?', 'Ping Pong' and 'Mermaid?', all of which amusingly suggest unnecessary features the Sandero could have while reinstating that the Sandero actually has all the features you need – such as high mpg and low costs.

The Duster 'Another One Drives a Duster' advert took the original Queen song, redrafted the words to focus on the facelifted Duster, and showed the 'elite' classes coveting a Duster. It was a home run.

Then the later 'Go Duster' commercial based on the Ghostbusters theme tune highlighted how the Duster gave you a family off-roader with just the gadgets you needed, all to an upbeat song that you'd come to associate with the model.

Through commercials Dacia wanted people to know unequivocally what the brand offered, what buying a Dacia would mean, and how your life would be better with a Dacia.

Dacia's commercial team nailed the brief, hugely helping Dacia to achieve its brand positioning and sales strategy that's led to today's success.

In 2024 Dacia sold almost 680,000 vehicles worldwide – a 2.3 per cent increase on 2023.

Not only was this a strong performance in itself, but it also meant Dacia secured 3.9 per cent of the Passenger Car and Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) sales in Europe, and 4.5 per cent of Passenger Car sales alone.

Hitting a major milestone, Dacia surpassed nine million vehicles sold since its 2005 relaunch, with the Sandero being crowned the best-selling car in Europe in 2024 with almost 310,000 units sold.

By the end of 2025 Dacia is expected to have sold around 280,000 vehicles in the UK.

Currently Dacia cars are on sale across 44 countries in Europe, providing eight million customers with its value for money cars – some feat for a communist car company from the 60s.

Dacia has also announced another £15k electric car will be arriving very soon which means that Dacia could soon be the brand of trusted and cheap electric cars too.

Electric cars just as dedicated to the function over frivolity promise of course.