Company attributes
Other attributes
The company was founded in 1967 with the technical assistance of Renault. According to the original contract, a license was purchased for a promising front-wheel drive Renault R12 model, the serial production of which was only to begin in France since 1969. Therefore, temporarily for the Romanian workers to master the conveyor assembly method, in 1968 the assembly of the licensed rear-engined Renault R8 model under the Dacia 1100 brand was mastered. Its small-scale production continued until 1971 with a slight modernization in 1970.
In 1969, in parallel with the French Renault R12 model (the European "Car of 1969/70"), a new front-wheel drive Dacia 1300 sedan was introduced. In 1972, on the basis of this model, the production of the 1300 Break station wagon was mastered, in 1973 - a half-ton pickup model 1302. Since 1977, the production of the Dacia 1300 has been completely localized. In 1979, a facelifted Dacia 1310 model with new lighting technology (four round headlights) was introduced, as well as a prototype of the 1310 Sport coupe, in the same year the ARO 10 compact SUV debuted on Dacia 1300 units, sold in some export markets as the Dacia Duster.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dacia assembled a small-scale D6 van (Renault Estafette), as well as a Renault R18 sedan and a Dacia 2000ruro hatchback from CKD kits. These passenger models were intended for the party nomenclature.
In 1981-1982, a family of commercial single-ton pickups 1304-1309 appeared. In 1983, a small-scale Sport 1410 coupe appeared. In the early 80s, a promising model of the Dacia 500 microcar with a two-cylinder engine was shown, which was a half of the standard Dacia engine. This model never went into production because of the economic crisis that broke out in Ceausescu Romania. In 1985, under the Dacia 1410 index, a more powerful version of the base model was mastered, which underwent another facelift in 1983. In 1985, a 5-door hatchback 1320 appeared, after restyling in 1990, it received the name 1325 Liberta and was produced until 1996.
In 1989, all Dacia models (CN1 series) were restyled. In 1992, the family was supplemented by a more economical version of the Dacia 1210, the production of which did not last long. In 1993, the 1310 family underwent another facelift (CN2 series), another one in 1995 (CN3) and the last one in 1998 (CN4). The production of passenger versions on the R12 platform was discontinued in 2004, and the production of commercial pickups was discontinued in 2005.
In 1994, Dacia mastered the production of the Nova hatchback on the Peugeot 309 license platform. In 1999, Renault S.A. bought 99% of Dacia's shares. In 2000, the Nova model underwent a facelift and became known as the SuperNova. In 2003, with the help of Renault, it was subjected to a deep modernization and became known as Solenza. In 2005, the production of the Dacia Solenza transitional model was discontinued.
Until 2005, Dacia produced approximately 2.5 million cars. Since 2004 Dacia has mastered the production of the Logan sedan on the worldwide Renault X90 platform. In 2006, the Logan MCV station wagon was mastered on the same reinforced platform (M90), which was supplemented with a Logan VAN commercial van in 2007, and a Logan Pickup truck in 2008. After the transition to a modern model range, the production of Dacia cars has increased many times.
In the rating of the German "Association of Technical Supervision" (VdTUV) in the age category "from 2 to 3 years" Dacia Logan is recognized as the most unreliable used car of 2019[5].