|
 100
years since the birth of mass production cars, car sales is almost
saturated in North America, Western Europe, Japan and other developed
countries. However, 80% of the world's population located in developing
countries where cars are still too expensive to afford.
Therefore 7 years ago Fiat developed a world car called Palio to target
at developing countries. Although it eventually failed to sell 1
million cars per year as planned, Fiat has paved the way for Renault.
Cars targeting at The Third World must
be cheap to buy, cheap to run and highly practical to use. Therefore
luxury and advanced technology are out of the question. Instead, cost
reduction is the first priority. Renault has an advantage in this
respect, because it acquired Romanian car maker Dacia in 1999. Romania
is one of the poorest Eastern Europe countries. It provides cheap
labour power that is essential to the production of Dacia Logan. The
Romanian-built Logan supplies mainly Eastern and Western Europe. On the
other hand, to break into the protected market of other developing
countries, Renault is also going to produce the Logan locally in
Russia, Iran, Colombia and Morocco. Its production base spans across
Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.
 Renault
said cheap is not necessarily low quality. If so, why did it badge the
Logan as “Dacia” instead of “Renault” ? Obviously the car is not built
at the same quality level as you expect for a Western car maker. Look
at the outdated, no-nonsense exterior styling and you will know. The
old-fashion shape delivers an outdated drag coefficient of 0.36. It
looks like a mid-80s Fiat, with angular body panels that are easy to be
pressed by cheap stamping machines. Of course, don't
expect tight fit panel gaps. There are a lot of cost
saving designs, such as a single windscreen wiper and a one-piece rear
side window.
 If you
compare with Western cars, you can hardly classify the Logan. Renault
sells it for as low as 7500 Euro, making it the cheapest car you
can buy in Western Europe. Nevertheless, in terms of size the Logan is
as big as Volkswagen Golf – with an even longer wheelbase ! No wonder
it has a very spacious cabin. With generous legroom and headroom, the
Logan is a genuine 5-seater. Besides, its boot provides an astonishing
510 litres of luggage space. So practical for so little money.
Predictably, the cabin is very bare. The whole dashboard is a single
piece of shinny hard plastic. Air-con and air bags are optional,
windows are manually wind, but this is nothing wrong
considering its intention.
To save money, Renault designed the Logan using many existing
components – the 75hp 1.4 and 90hp 1.6-litre 8-valve engines are going
to phase out in Renault's own cars, but they are perfectly suitable to
power the Logan. The 5-speed manual gearbox comes from Megane but with
revised ratios to compensate the smaller engine. The front MacPherson
struts comes from Clio, while the torsion-beam axle shares with Nissan
Micra / Renault Modus / the next Clio. The rear dampers are mounted
vertically in order to provide better durability on rough roads
normally encountered in the developing countries.
 On the
road, the long suspension travel (also designed for rough roads)
provides good bump absorption. Ride quality and quietness is better
than you might imagine, as is the eager manner of the 1.4 engine. The
long stroke 1.6 is a rougher at high rev, so it is better to buy the
entry-level 1.4 and save the extra money. Handling is not as competent
as Western cars of course, but at least its steering is honest.
In a world pursuing soft-touch plastics, muted interior and electronic
blah blah blah, Logan lets us rethink what automobiles are intended to
be. Keep it simple and honest, you can have a practical transport for
very little money. To me, manually winding windows work just as fine as
electric ones. I have no idea why people always pursue for
never-ending complexity. |