Photo: kolesa.ru
While it’s pretty unbelievable that ultra-luxury brands have all popped new sales records in 2022, given the worldwide turmoil that has also impacted the automotive industry, no one should be surprised by the soaring figures at the low (Dacia) end, right?
Indeed, ever since the Renault Group acquired the little Romanian automaker and set out on a quest to make it international, there have been detractors who said that a budget brand would never succeed among traditional and pretentious European customers. Almost a quarter of a century later, the carmaker is not only a major success story – just like Skoda was for Volkswagen – but it has also grown out of its budget strategy into a ‘smart casual’ way of life.
And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have the figures to back up the claims about its popularity. After the first two months of 2023, according to ACEA, Dacia’s registrations across the European Union, EFTA, and UK regions have jumped no less than 46.6% and are just a whisker away from its parent Renault’s namesake brand’s sales (93,149 to 92,745 units)! And is anyone willing to lose a bet by claiming that a big part of the success does not come from Duster’s subcompact SUV story?
Presented in 2010 as a sibling to various Renault and Nissan CUVs, the little Duster punched well above its weight thanks to its off-road focus, affordability, and reliability. Sure, the no-frills interior is one of the negative points, and so was the short six-speed manual transmission, but things are looking better and better with each passing iteration. And here we are at the moment when the second generation, which launched in 2017, is almost ready to call out its successor and pass the medley relay’s stick.
We know that because our spy photographer partners have finally caught the first third-gen Dacia Duster prototypes out in the wild, somewhere in Spain – where there is much sun and joyousness about the subcompact SUV looking a tad big(ster). It was only natural, of course, for the smaller Duster to look up to the upcoming compact flagship SUV and borrow some of the novel Bigster DNA – not only in terms of styling but also possibly regarding subtly oversized dimensions if the CMF-B platform is indeed shared among them.
Anyway, since some folks do not necessarily care about waiting, and also do not consider new introductions like the Extreme trim enough of a novelty to warrant an acquisition, all we can do to appease them is defer to the imaginative realm of digital car content creators for an unofficial first preview of the next Duster iteration. So, the good folks over at Kolesa have decided to try and jump the digital gun ahead of Dacia’s upcoming introduction of the third-generation SUV.
And their resident pixel master – Nikita Chuiko (aka kelsonik on social media) was quick to create the first hypothetical images of the off-road focused family SUV. Of course, all this should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt until Dacia officially reveals the model, and we are probably a long way from then, as the larger Bigster SUV could be the first to arrive on the market later this year or early in 2024. Only after that and the testing phase is completed may we also see the next Duster iteration, so we are truly in for the long haul.
And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have the figures to back up the claims about its popularity. After the first two months of 2023, according to ACEA, Dacia’s registrations across the European Union, EFTA, and UK regions have jumped no less than 46.6% and are just a whisker away from its parent Renault’s namesake brand’s sales (93,149 to 92,745 units)! And is anyone willing to lose a bet by claiming that a big part of the success does not come from Duster’s subcompact SUV story?
Presented in 2010 as a sibling to various Renault and Nissan CUVs, the little Duster punched well above its weight thanks to its off-road focus, affordability, and reliability. Sure, the no-frills interior is one of the negative points, and so was the short six-speed manual transmission, but things are looking better and better with each passing iteration. And here we are at the moment when the second generation, which launched in 2017, is almost ready to call out its successor and pass the medley relay’s stick.
We know that because our spy photographer partners have finally caught the first third-gen Dacia Duster prototypes out in the wild, somewhere in Spain – where there is much sun and joyousness about the subcompact SUV looking a tad big(ster). It was only natural, of course, for the smaller Duster to look up to the upcoming compact flagship SUV and borrow some of the novel Bigster DNA – not only in terms of styling but also possibly regarding subtly oversized dimensions if the CMF-B platform is indeed shared among them.
Anyway, since some folks do not necessarily care about waiting, and also do not consider new introductions like the Extreme trim enough of a novelty to warrant an acquisition, all we can do to appease them is defer to the imaginative realm of digital car content creators for an unofficial first preview of the next Duster iteration. So, the good folks over at Kolesa have decided to try and jump the digital gun ahead of Dacia’s upcoming introduction of the third-generation SUV.
And their resident pixel master – Nikita Chuiko (aka kelsonik on social media) was quick to create the first hypothetical images of the off-road focused family SUV. Of course, all this should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt until Dacia officially reveals the model, and we are probably a long way from then, as the larger Bigster SUV could be the first to arrive on the market later this year or early in 2024. Only after that and the testing phase is completed may we also see the next Duster iteration, so we are truly in for the long haul.
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