Fancy a Dacia Bigster with seven seats? Well you can’t have one!
The Dacia Jogger remains the brand’s only offering capable of ferrying around seven. CEO Denis Le Vot tells Auto Express why
The all-new Dacia Bigster has just been unveiled, and it’s the largest SUV the Romanian brand has ever launched, measuring 4.57 metres long. Its size has led some to speculate that the Bigster would be offered as a seven-seater, but Dacia’s boss has confirmed this will not be the case.
Speaking exclusively to Auto Express ahead of the Bigster’s official reveal, Dacia CEO Denis Le Vot explained: “If I gave you a job to peel 100 carrots every day, [and] after a month I come and see you, I bet that you would not be doing it with a Swiss Army knife. You would have a fantastic knife specially made for carrots, right? This is exactly the same thing [with Bigster].
“We tried it, because it was not stupid, but there were two or three things. First, seven-seaters make up 25 per cent of the market, and 75 per cent are five-seaters.
“Second, if you try to do everything, like a Swiss Army knife, the knee room in the back would be smaller, and this is a great thing that Bigster is offering for a family car. We would also have to change the floor of the car and put weight on it, and reinforce the rear axle and put another weight on it.”
So rather than go down that path, Dacia managed to make the Bigster Hybrid 150kg lighter than other hybrid cars, says Le Vot. He added: “Imagine the price of 150kg of metal, aluminium, electronics, fabric, whatever you want. It's a lot of money.” This helped achieve the Bigster’s sub-€25,000 starting price in Europe (UK pricing is still unconfirmed), and allows the cars to use smaller engines than might be expected.
That means that the Dacia Jogger remains the only seven-seater in the brand’s wallet-friendly range. The Bigster and Jogger compete in the wide-reaching C-segment of the car market, and Dacia has plans for a further two models to join them.
Details about both are still thin on the ground, but Le Vot confirmed they will use the same CMF-B platform that underpins almost the brand’s entire range, from the Sandero supermini to the Bigster.
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