6th Dec 2022, 02:17
Interesting and informative comment in contrast to a lot of stuff trotted out on this site.
15th Dec 2022, 13:04
Thanks for the positive feedback. I try to be honest and accurate in my comments. Many car owners are actually quite biased. A car is often times seen as a favorite 'toy', which makes reviews be more or less subjective. But I would like to take you to another tour about communist Romanian vehicles produced during Ceausescu dictatorship times. Communist Romania also had another French designed vehicle sold in the 80s (Communism ended in 1989). It was a Citroën design named Oltcit - Olt from the Oltenia region where the assembly factory was located in Romania, and Cit from the Citroen brand. The car was a 2 doors coupé hatchback with a 1.1 gasoline engine and 4 speed manual transmission. I am not aware if this was a car ever produced by Citroen themselves. Forgot to mention, both the Dacia and Oltcit had only gasoline carbureted engines.
The Oltcit had a boxer engine which would require a special engine oil because there was a design flaw that would cause engine wear if using normal oil. My father sold the Dacia and purchased an Oltcit, and he was sending me to a special location in Bucharest to buy this engine oil for the Oltcit. He was saying the Oltcit needed a thinner oil. It was a fairly small car again with no electric equipment, no cruise control, no A/C, no automatic transmission or sunroof. I think these cars - Dacia included - didn't come with a radio, so having a radio was an aftermarket option that was pretty popular with thieves, so most of the time these units were removed when parking the car. You can read Oltcit reviews on this site, I believe the most popular model was Oltcit Club. There was also the Oltcit Club 12 TRS model made for export to several countries including France, equipped with a 1.2 then 1.3 boxer engines; these were rather quite powerful vehicles for the time.
One interesting thing about any car during Communism is that such ownership was considered in a similar way as having an apartment - a car would usually be kept for life. There may have been people selling their vehicles, but usually one would keep a car for many years, having the same car for 10, 15 or even 20 years was common. Another amusing aspect is there were no options to choose from when you would place an order. Usually people would place an order which would put your name on a wait list. Depending on the years, wait time may range from 2-3 years or more. The only 'option' was the car color and you'd have to pay cash for the vehicle.
We had other cars that were entirely imported (not produced locally). One of them was the 4 door sedan Lada from the URSS. We had quite a few of them but much less than the Dacia. You can find reviews about the Lada on this site, I believe the model sold in Romania may have been the Lada 2106. This was a car inspired by a Fiat model, and was considered quite a robust vehicle, perhaps more spacious and safer than the Dacia. I do remember also seeing the Lada Niva on the roads.
The Dacia 1300 and 1310 have been manufactured in both sedan, coupé and 'touring' versions. There have also been a 'pick-up' Dacia version. Using the same platform, a 4x4 version Aro 10 vehicle was also produced in Romania, but it was very rare and offered usually only to privileged persons. We also had a bigger 4x4 Aro 24 vehicle that was even more rare. Ceausescu had one of these larger 4x4, a modified version which you can see in some Youtube videos. Can find these Aro reviews on this site. Most of the 4x4 vehicles build in Romania were meant to be sold for export.
4th Dec 2022, 18:11
As mentioned above, the french Renault 12 was sold in Romania from 1970 as the Dacia 1300, the exact same vehicle. It was also sold in several other countries, including the USA and Australia. Each country would build locally all car components, including the 1300cc engine with a steel block.
In Romania it was only offered with a manual transmission, no air conditioning, no electric windows, just really a basic model with black vinyl seats that smelled a lot in hot summer days. I remember, I slept on the rear bench many times with my brother during trips through Romania.
The first cars sold in Romania had actually engines made in France. I spoke with a owner who had one of those. Because of the higher quality standards and metallurgy, those engines were very long lasting, the person had the engine run until 250,000 kms until he had to open it to replace the compression rings and rebore the cylinders. He said, later cars with the engine produced locally in Romania had much shorter life span. Still, this was the car for the average Romanian citizen that could fork around 70,000 lei (local currency), the equivalent of a small studio apartment back in the days when an average salary would be around 2500 lei.
In the 70s, the Romanian economy was doing better - even though Romania was about the worst Communist country at that point. Still, people would travel during holidays to the mountains or to the Black Sea, usually trips less than 400 kms or 250 miles. These are not really long trips and would still take many hours at the local speeds so in the end, few cars would accumulate what we may call high miles. When properly maintained, I believe Dacia was considered a fairly reliable vehicle, especially in a country where quality products were as common as yellow donkeys. On top of it everything was easy to repair on those vehicles, with few tools. A few fun facts, we had no such thing as winter tires, but we did had rough winters with icy roads. The engine was carbureted and not willing to start in cold winter days. Fuel economy was average, about 8l/100km on the road. In the 80s, Ceausescu imposed harsh economies and fuel was very much restricted. Owners could purchase only about 25 liters every month, and that was if they were able to find a petrol station that had fuel, with many, many cars waiting in line.
Romanians also had the choice for an Eastern Germany made Trabant vehicle, at about half the price of a Dacia. The Trabant was quite an unsafe, smelly, small and less comfortable car so there were not that many on the roads. I think the Dacia was a good choice overall. Ceausescu wanted a simple vehicle, and before getting the license to build the Dacia, he had asked for deals with Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Peugeot, etc.
The Renault 12 was not the first french car sold in Romania under license. Before it, we had the Renault 8, called Dacia 1100. Another good french vehicle.