The future Dacia, whose price will amount to 5,000 euros, will enter the design stage starting January 1, 2001, the president of Renault Group, Louis Schweitzer, told Ziarul Financiar during a meeting with Romanian media representatives at the Auto Salon in Paris.
The head of the French company stressed that the new car would enter production at the Colibasi plant at the end of 2003, creating a completely new market niche, as it will offer the comfort of a family automobile, for a lower price than a small-sized car.
“The current advantages of Dacia are its interior space and the volume available for luggage – two things that we should not lose,” Schweitzer specified.
This statement confirms speculations according to which the future model is likely to be a car with classical architecture, in three volumes, with a size similar to Dacia Nova. Referring to the same model Romanian consumers are very much looking forward to, the Renault president stated that it would be also aimed at foreign markets.
In his turn, Manuel Gomez, head of the division dealing with international operations of the Renault Group, stressed that the new Dacia would be especially aimed at the so-called “emerging markets,” this category including Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and South America. According to the success in exports and to the volume of sales (estimated at about 200,000 items per year), managers will also envisage the development of an entire family of Dacia models.
Asked to make a comparison between the future evolution of Dacia model within Renault Group and the one registered by Skoda within the Volkswagen family, Schweitzer insisted on the fact that the two companies had different starting points and consequently they would not directly compete with each other in the future. As to the great premiere of this year – Dacia SuperNova, whose official launch is to take place towards the middle of this month – Louis Schweitzer stated that it would not trigger the withdrawal of the 1310 model.