Duster ranks seventh at the 'Car of the year 2011'

Dacia Duster was ranked seventh in the final of the Car of The Year 2011 contest that took place on Monday at Paris, with the first place won by the first full electric model coming from the Japanese automaker Nissan.

The first three ranked were Nissan Leaf, which scored 257 points, Alfa Romeo Giulietta with 248 points and Opel Meriva with 244 points.

The next ranked were the models Ford C-Max/Grand C-Max with 224 points, Citroën C3/DS3, which scored 175 points, Volvo S60/V60 with 145 points and Dacia Duster, which got 132 points.

Each member of the jury was entitled to assign a total of 25 points for at least five of the seven nominees, but no more that 10 points for their favourite model.

Dacia Duster is the first Romanian car to qualify into the Car of The Year final, a contest that has been held for 46 years.

At the last year's edition of the Car of The Year final, the winning model was Volkswagen Polo.

Dacia, the Romanian car manufacturer that had been set up 42 years ago, was taken over by the Renault Group in 1999.

Renault has launched so far seven models under the Dacia brand, as it follows: Dacia Logan, Dacia Logan MCV, Dacia VAN, Dacia Logan Pick-Up, Dacia Sandero, Dacia Sandero Stepway and Dacia Duster.

The first SUV model of the automaker Dacia was launched in early March at the Geneva Motor Show and in the first ten months of the year, 60.578 units were manufactured at the plant in Mioveni.

Translated by Mihaela Grigoraș and Andreea Velicu
MA Students, MTTLC, Bucharest University