It’s been 15 years since the most important local automotive company has been taken over by Renault. A few days ago, the French company published an article telling the story of Dacia over the last 15 years.

Starting from 2005, Dacia portofolio has evolved from a single car model to a complete range, made for 6.5 million customers. Dacia took the automobile world by surprise: in the beginning Renault came up with the concept of low-cost automobile in Europe, Dacia Logan. Soon there might be a first 100% electric model, anticipated by the Spring show-car.

Founded in 1966, Dacia has always been connected to Renault: its first model was the Renault 8, renamed Dacia 1100. This model was assembled using French parts. It was followed by Dacia 1300, after Renault 12, the most popular Romanian car during the communist era.

In 1999, Renault purchased Dacia, benefiting from the factory’s tradition and expertise. The plan was initially focused on the East-European market with the cheapest three volumes model.

It was an original concept that reversed the traditional way of thinking, through optimizing the costs without losing safety and reliability. In this manner, starting from design to production, the final selling price determined all other costs. This new strategy was based on components and technology with amortized costs, which made it a competitive advantage for Renault.

Released in 2004, Logan kept its promises and became a successful model, having 1.8 million units sold. This success was followed by the extension of the range with Sandero, in 2008. A year later, Dacia’s Stepway followed. In 2010, the brand came up with major news: Duster. This was the model that made the SUV segment accessible for everyone. Until then, the SUV segment was composed only of top range vehicles.

The range was completed by Logan MCV (break) in 2007 and later on by Lodgy (monovolume) and Dokker (utility / van) in 2012.