The view that Eastern Europe demands three-box sedans is changing, believes Dacia chairman Christian Esteve. New, younger buyers in the region are taking their tastes from the west. Mark Bursa reports.
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It’s easy to get an idea of how much Romania has changed. Just try taking a taxi from Bucharest airport to the city centre. As recently as 2001, that was a 20-minute journey down empty boulevards. Occasionally you’d pass a rattling Dacia-built Renault 12 or a wheezing Oltcit, or perhaps a Soviet-vintage bus belching out black smoke.
Now, you’re pretty much nose-to-tail all the way. The smart taxi drivers know a few back doubles, but the journey takes well over an hour. Ironically, the boulevards are now lined with smart car dealerships, fuelling the demand for new cars from this rapidly advancing country, a full member of the European Union since April 2007.
As for the old R12s and Oltcits, they’re becoming a dying breed, replaced first by a flood of second-hand cars from Western Europe, and now, more significantly, by vast numbers of Dacia Logans. The Logan was designed specifically for these roads – a robust, three-box sedan. But the pace of change in Romania is so rapid that even the Logan itself is becoming obsolete here.
Romanian consumer tastes are shifting westwards – instead of the three-box Logan, they’re after something more in line with Western European tastes, believes Dacia chairman Christian Esteve.
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By GlobalData“When we conceived the Logan we only conceived it as a sedan – because the trend was very clear. The customer wanted a car with a boot.” There was a certain social status to be had from owning a four-door, three-box sedan in Central and Eastern Europe. Logan was designed to fit that bill, and at Dacia, and the job was to get the Logan to market by 2004. “We put all our energy in,” said Esteve. “I had only one goal – the 2004 launch of Logan.”
But not any more. “Now they don’t want this. Here ands in other countries – Russia, Turkey, Morocco – we have a younger generation with money that we didn’t have 10 years ago. They are into Western trends. They have the internet and television – each apartment has a satellite dish. They want more style.”
And to cater for these buyers, Dacia has developed Sandero, a very different vehicle off the same basic Logan platform. It’s a five-door hatchback, but with a very different look. Gone are the Logan’s boxy sides, replaced with a European-style ‘tumblehome’ –. “Sandero I believe is a younger car,” said Esteve.
“The panels are different because we maybe made a mistake with the Logan sedan. The panels were very square. The idea was to put three Russian guys in the back – and we needed a lot of room! But with Sandero, we have had to change the panels because tastes have changed very quickly.”
So will Sandero become the dominant car? “My personal feeling is yes,” said Esteve. “It will become the most produced version, which we don’t mind, because on the line it’s the same for us.”
Sandero shares more than 50% of its components with Logan – mainly under the skin. The platform and drivetrain is basically the same. “They have many common parts because we have always tried to keep it simple,” said Esteve. Sandero is now on sale in Romania, and goes on sale in major European markets at the end of June, where it is expected to outsell Logan.
Esteve admits to being somewhat taken aback by the success of Logan in Western markets – France and Germany and second and third-largest markets for the car after Romania. “Logan’s success in Western Europe is a very interesting marketing case. We did not know these customers existed!” he joked.
Interestingly, Sandero is being positioned as a premium product above Logan in Western Europe, while in Romania it’s cheaper than Logan, as it’s aimed at younger buyers. Esteve has also solved the right-hand drive problem, allowing Sandero – but not Logan – to be sold in the UK within the next 12 months. The cars will be built in Pitesti, rather than India or South Africa, the other RHD production centres.
Renault’s ability to read the market changes looks good. In fact it’s a result of placing the Central European market research team in Romania. “Today the trends within the market are changing very quickly, but we have 60 people here making market research.”
Now Renault has opened a design centre in central Bucharest. It’s housed in the former Swiss embassy building, a lovely 19th century building that has been “designerised” by the bright young things who work there. The foyer features an oh-so-ironic row of whitewashed cuckoo clocks with brightly coloured faces (Swiss, geddit?), showing the time at Renault’s other global design offices.
In the building, around 15 young designers and modellers work on hi-tech computer systems, creating new cars off the same platform. Adaptations of the new Logan pick-up are under study, and full 3-D models can be viewed on screen in high-resolution computer models, showing the cars in simulated real-world conditions. This not only looks good – it cuts down on the number of expensive clay models that have to be made before a project is finalised.
It’s all very impressive, and very international – many of the designers are from neighbouring Central and Eastern European states. Just the sort of people Dacia is targeting as customers, in fact. And the design centre is already working on future Dacias – and future Renaults, including a new derivative of the recently-launched Kangoo van. A clay on display showed a cute passenger-carrying version of the shortened Kangoo Compact with a glass roof, that could be a cult hit with European car buyers.
And in 18 months time, we’ll see another Logan derivative – a crossover that will feature a 4×4 system – possibly sourced from Kangoo. As with Sandero, here is another sign of how the basic ‘X90’ architecture is spawning cars that are further and further away from the utilitarian, three-box sedan concept. “We have not decided on a name for this car yet,” said Esteve. “It is possible it could have completely different name.”
Esteve believes the basic Logan platform has the potential to spawn even more models. Indeed, everything Dacia makes will be based on the X90 platform. “All future models will come off same platform. We have a very good platform and we can make many things with it. We can stretch and widen it – manufacturing technology has been designed for that and it is very efficient,” said Esteve.
So expect a bigger version in the future – something along the lines of Fiat’s Linea. “We will go up to M1 segment – Megane sized,” he said. “We could also go down to supermini but it’s not worth it – because one of the advantages of the Logan is its size. Is there a market for a small Dacia? Frankly, no.”
The X90 platform is not due for replacement any time soon. “Our business plan shows this car still has a long life ahead of it. The beauty of this car is that it’s a wonderful platform and changing the body shape above the car is not an issue.” Esteve said. “When we started the project in 2001 that was the idea – and we keep this in mind.”
New competitors will enter the market in the next couple of years – Toyota’s low-cost car is due next year, while Fiat’s replacement for the ‘Project 178’ family (Palio/Siena/Strada) is expected within the next 18 months. “Out strategy for staying ahead is to accelerate development of models and to follow the market as quickly as possible,” said Esteve. “We are very proud of seeing Toyota trying to make what we did!”
Mark ‘Coolbear’ Bursa
