Yup, that’s absolutely right – as alluded in the teaser video above, the ever-serious tuners at Renaultsport have taken a spanner to the budget Dacia Sandero to produce a pocket rocket that should be cheap as chips, dubbed the Renault Sandero RS.
The film shows that the Renault-badged, Clio-based Romanian five-door hatch will gain Renaultsport’s signature F1-inspired front “wing” and LED daytime running lights, alongside large wheels that appear to have been swiped from the Clio RS 200, shod with low-profile Continental tyres. Other typical RS trinkets should also make an appearance, inside and out.
A big question mark surrounds the powertrain, with some suggesting that the hotted-up Sandero could receive the 133 hp/195 Nm F4R 2.0 litre naturally-aspirated four-pot from the Duster, mated to a six-speed manual transmission. Those who have balked at the current Clio RS‘ move to forced induction and a dual-clutch gearbox may indeed find some solace with this model.
The Dacia Sandero is sold wearing Renault’s diamond emblem in certain emerging markets such as South America, South Africa and Russia – indeed, the title of the video claims the Sandero RS is a “surprise for Latin America,” and RenaultSport has stated that it has no plans to produce a Dacia-badged version. This pretty much rules out sales in Europe, presumably to avoid competing with Renault’s own warm GT lineup.
Dacia Sandero and Sandero Stepway
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I didn’t know that the engine from the Duster can be considered a performance engine. Haha. To each, his own
for me, since renault is still rather under-recognized in this region, and people tend to associate renault as the maker of some really high performance cars, they should consider selling dacia cars here instead of trying to make renault a brand for all.
if i were renault boss, i would have made renault (in asian market at least) a more upmarket and higher performance brand, and let dacia takes care of the lower-price market.
Good news!
James May will be proud of this car.