Romania March 2021: Dacia Duster ends 198 consecutive months of Logan domination

The Dacia Duster is the best-selling vehicle at home for the first time.

The Romanian new car market bounces back up a rather timid 18.1% year-on-year to 7.861 units in March, keeping in mind March 2020 was down -32.2% on the year prior. The year-to-date tally is now down -25.8% to 20.753. Dacia (+6.1%) and Skoda (+5.2%) only edge up but top the brands ranking ahead of Volkswagen (+11.7%) up three spots on February to #3. Jeep (+934.5%) brilliantly breaks into the Top 10 brands at #9 with Toyota (+79.5%), Ford (+50.7%) and BMW (+30.3%) also outpacing the market. Renault (+13.6%), Hyundai (+11%) and Mercedes (+3.6%) aren’t that lucky. Suzuki (+83.6%), Audi (+57.5%), Citroen (+36.4%) and Opel (+32.1%) shine below.

We have a monumental event in the models ranking this month: the Dacia Duster (+29%) snaps the pole position for the first time ever with 8.5% of the market ahead of the Dacia Sandero (+104.1%) benefitting fully from its new generation. This means the Dacia Logan (-23.4%) is relegated to third place, the first time ever that the Logan isn’t the best-selling vehicle at home in Romania. That’s 198 consecutive months or 16.5 years at #1 since its launch back in September 2004 and up until last month… A difficult transition between two generations and lack of stock availability could be to blame for this month’s weak result. The next few months will tell us whether this was a freak event or the start of a new trend in Romania, keeping in mind the Logan remains #1 YTD for now. The Jeep Compass (+2840%) continues to stun and climbs 4 spots on last month to #4 and best-selling foreigner above the Skoda Octavia (+40.2%), Hyundai Tucson (+45.7%) and Ford Puma (+335.7%) all performing strongly.

Previous month: Romania February 2021: Dacia crashes (-48.9%), Jeep stuns (+543.8%) in market down -22.1%

One year ago: Romania March 2020: Peugeot, Hyundai defy market down -32.2%

Full March 2021 Top 40 All-brands and Top 220 All-models below.