Photo: Stefan Baldauf/SB-Medien
Ever since the automotive media started talking about the second generation of the Duster, word on the street is Dacia plans to bring forth the so-called Grand Duster. Essentially a lengthened chassis with seating for seven people, the 2018 Dacia Grand Duster won’t see the light of day for a variety of reasons.
Remember Dacia’s celebration of the 1,000,000th vehicle built at the Renault-owned automaker’s manufacturing plant in Tangier, Morocco? It’s then that Auto Express had a talk with commercial director Francois Mariotte. And in the exact words of the French official, seven seats for the second generation of the Duster are off the cards. Behold the lowdown from the man himself:
“When you want to transform a car that is a five seater from a seven seater there is no way – you will lose the compactness and the 4x4 capabilities of the car,” commented Mariotte. “I know there is a lot of noise going around about a seven-seater on Duster. But it’s not on the plan. You can forget it.”
Now that the rumor has been proven untrue, here’s another statement from Mariotte: “The priority when renewing Duster is to keep all the strengths of the actual model, and one part of this is the chassis or the platform.” With all due respect, reading between the lines suggests that the all-new Duster will be underpinned by an improved version of the tried-and-tested B0 platform.
Derived from the Nissan B vehicle architecture, the chassis is available in both front- and all-wheel-drive flavor. The latter is a selectable system with three driving modes (2WD, Auto, Lock), with the most extreme setting designed to send 50 percent of the torque to the rear axle. Pretty basic, but effective.
When it goes on sale in its domestic market of Romania at the beginning of 2018, the all-new Duster will be offered with an array of Renault engines. The 1.5 dCi will soldier on, and so will the 1.2 TCe. Other than the standard manual transmission, select powertrain and trim levels will be made available with the six-speed dry-clutch automatic transmission Renault calls EDC.
“When you want to transform a car that is a five seater from a seven seater there is no way – you will lose the compactness and the 4x4 capabilities of the car,” commented Mariotte. “I know there is a lot of noise going around about a seven-seater on Duster. But it’s not on the plan. You can forget it.”
Now that the rumor has been proven untrue, here’s another statement from Mariotte: “The priority when renewing Duster is to keep all the strengths of the actual model, and one part of this is the chassis or the platform.” With all due respect, reading between the lines suggests that the all-new Duster will be underpinned by an improved version of the tried-and-tested B0 platform.
Derived from the Nissan B vehicle architecture, the chassis is available in both front- and all-wheel-drive flavor. The latter is a selectable system with three driving modes (2WD, Auto, Lock), with the most extreme setting designed to send 50 percent of the torque to the rear axle. Pretty basic, but effective.
When it goes on sale in its domestic market of Romania at the beginning of 2018, the all-new Duster will be offered with an array of Renault engines. The 1.5 dCi will soldier on, and so will the 1.2 TCe. Other than the standard manual transmission, select powertrain and trim levels will be made available with the six-speed dry-clutch automatic transmission Renault calls EDC.
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