Dacia Duster: ‘You’ll be amazed at how good it is for the price’ | Martin Love

The Communist-era brand from Romania has been given a new lease of life by Renault - and it's relishing its time in the west

Dacia Duster
Price 9,995
0-62mph 11 seconds
Top speed 105mph
MPG 44.1
CO2 145g/km

You don't always get what you pay for - sometimes you get a whole lot more. The Dacia Duster is a Romanian car with a name that sounds like a cheery vacuum cleaner. The fact that it's cheap won't come as a surprise, but what will amaze you is just how good it is for the price. The car industry has spent decades persuading us that the only way is up; that we need to spend more to get smoother, glossier, quieter, swankier motors. More dosh = more posh. Dacia has had a good look at that business model, scratched its chin and said: "Tell you what, why don't we build a car that's not so smooth and not so glossy, that's a bit noisy and has doors that make a strange rubbery sound when you open them, and then sell it for half the price?" This plain-as-day idea is now being grabbed with both hands by hard-pressed British motorists.