The head of design at Renault says the French brand plans to eventually stop selling rebadged Dacia models.
Speaking to Automotive News Europe, design chief Laurens van den Acker said that he wanted the practice of Renault marketing rebadged Dacia (Renault’s low-cost Romanian subsidiary) products to be phased out.
“My goal is to have a global Renault lineup,” Van den Acker said, adding that “I want that [the rebadging] to stop”.
In various markets outside of Europe, the Renault brand sells some vehicles that are also badged as Dacia products, including the Sandero and the Duster here in South Africa, plus the Logan in countries such as Brazil.
Interestingly, though, Van der Acker said that the Duster was likely to be “the only exception” to this new strategy as “it’s one of our best-selling cars”.
He didn’t, however, provide any sort of timeframe, but did explain that vehicles such as the Sandero and Logan would eventually be replaced by more distinctive, upmarket Renault models. We expect, however, that some architecture would still be shared; the new coupé-styled Arkana crossover, for instance, runs on the Dacia-developed B0 platform.
