Dacia to Ferrari: Testers trade cars in Ultimate Secret Santa


MS It’s very hard to get a £15k combustion-engined car at the moment, never mind an EV.

RL Credit to Dacia. For that money, I think we would all rather buy something second-hand, but the fact that you can go out and buy a new EV for that, with a warranty… It’s great. 

And it isn’t some sort of toy, like the Ami.

IV You look at it, you see the Linglong Green Max tyres or whatever they are… But then you drive it. I do like Dacias, and they are always surprisingly good. It doesn’t feel like an expensive car, but it isn’t trying to be one: it’s decent, and you would get a lot of use out of it.

RL I’m in the Duster at the moment, and it’s very good indeed. It just goes neatly into a corner, the steering picks up nicely, relative to the car’s positioning, that is. Is there any of that in there?

IV It rides quite well for something with really cheap, basic suspension. It doesn’t clunk on these bumpy roads and it’s not thrown about left or right. In everything it does, it’s fine, and that’s the impressive thing about Dacia.

I love the way they are: surprisingly cheap but more than decent. This Spring isn’t quite as complete as a Duster, but offering an electric car for so little money really is quite a result.

SC The thing I love about Dacia is the way they make life hard for their rivals. Every time they launch another model, you can see the people who are trying to sell against them sort of going: “Oh sh*t.”

MT That leaves just two cars. Who brought the Morgan Plus Four?

IV I brought the Morgan for you, Mark. You’re our Car of the Year juror and you deal in sensible, rational cars. But motoring isn’t all about sensible and rational, so I thought I’d bring you something very different.

I love the Morgan, not because it’s the objective best car in the world, but because it feels special and it’s an event, and I often find that matters more than raw ability.



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