VIVE LA REVOLUTION

Dacia boss Denis Le Vot explains how the brand has gone from strength to strength

- John Mcllroy

DENIS Le Vot wants to sell you a car. And he has a good idea when and why it might happen. What started out as a relaxed discussion of how what was once a state-owned brand from Romania has become the value king of private-car buyers across Europe has, inevitably, arrived at the present day. Having reached this point, Dacia's CEO can't resist looking into the near future. And boy, is he excited about it.

With Europe's car manufacturers racing each other down the path to full electrification, this may seem a strange period for a brand that has frequently eschewed the latest tech to see huge potential. But Le Vot is positively fizzing as he looks forward two years from now, when his line-up will have expanded into yet another new area of the market: a full-sized. family SUV, as previewed by the Bigster concept.

We're standing alongside that very show car, in fact, in one of the 'design review theatres', deep in the bowels of parent firm Renault's Technocentre on the outskirts of Paris. Denis has prepared a few slides to illustrate his points and the one tracking the prices of family crossovers - think Nissan Qashqai and its ilk - has him hopping from foot to foot with passion, anger and excitement.

He slaps the Bigster concept on the roof. "This is coming, and it is for the many," he says. "We are Dacia; we don't forget this. Let's say that you and your wife, you bought a crossover for £28,000 a while back. Then after five years you renewed, at £30,000. Then you renewed again, maybe at two years, at £37,000. The joke begins to be real, huh? "