Renault India has long played the rebadging exercise with its global partner, Nissan’s models be it the Nissan Micra or the Nissan Sunny. The “Renault” only models to be launched were the Fluence and the Duster. Out of these, the Renault Duster has been a huge hit among the car buyers and also coveted with many “Car of the Year” awards. Indeed it is a great value-for-money no frills car. This has perhaps spurred Renault to bring in more individualistic models to India. In a recent scoop, it is revealed that the company will be bringing the Dacia branded Sandero to the Indian market by 2016. Dacia is a low cost Renault brand with its origins in Romania. Recently, the Sandero got a fresh upgrade and Renault is planning to replace the Pulse (re-badged Micra) with the Sandero.
It is to be noted here that even the Duster brought by Renault to India was basically from the Dacia stable. With the launch of the Sandero, it will be the third car under the Dacia brand to be brought to India by the company after the Duster and the Lodgy. The Lodgy is expected to be launched sometime later this year. in the global market, the Dacia Sandero is powered by an option of 2 petrol engines: a 900cc TCe turbo petrol engine making 90 BHP of power and 135 NM of torque or a 1.2 litre-naturally aspirated version producing 75 BHP of power. It even gets a LPG petrol variant with the 1.2 Litre unit. In diesel, the Sandero gets the 1.5 litre K9K engine with 75 BHP of power and 200 NM of torque or 90 BHP of power and 220 NM of torque.
Overall, like the Duster, the Dacia Sandero is also a no-frills, conservatively styled hatchback which will make great sense to the cost conscious consumer. It comes loaded with features too like Satellite Navigation, Cruise Control. Rear Parking Sensors, twin Airbags and ABS-EBD. Maybe to launch it in a competitive price band in India, it will do away with some of the gadgetry and features to compete with Indian counterparts on price.
Source- ICB
