Europe's Hottest Car - The No-Frills Dacia - NYTimes.com PARIS - The hottest car in Europe this year is not a BMW, a Benz or a Bentley. It is Renault's low-cost brand, Dacia, born in Romania. In data released Tuesday on European auto sales, Dacia showed the greatest gains of any brand, with sales this year through November surging 21.1 percent compared with the same period a year ago. That's well above second-place finishers Mazda and Jaguar, each with 15.6 percent increases according to the data. Though Dacia captures less than 3 percent of the market in Europe, its performance has been remarkable for a brand that only reappeared in 2004. With unemployment in the euro zone above 12 percent and economic uncertainty high, Dacia has found a foothold with prices as low as 7,700 euros, or about $10,600, taxes included, for its no-frills Logan sedan. For someone used to driving a Mercedes or a BMW, a Dacia would be "awful," Jens Schattner, an analyst with Macquarie in Frankfurt, said. But if you just need to get from Point A to Point B, it's simple, reliable technology, and you get a three-year warranty. It's all you need. Dacia is one of the bright spots in the European market, which has undergone a wrenching contraction since the financial crisis. Auto sales are headed for another year of declines in Europe, according to auto registration data released on Tuesday by the European Automobile Manufacturers" Association, though they rose slightly in November for the third straight month. Sales were down 2.7 percent for the first 11 months of the year in the European Union compared with the same period in 2012. Dacia's market share improved to 2.6 percent, selling about 260,000 vehicles through November, according to the data. Volkswagen dominates with a 13.4 percent market share and more than 1.4 million units registered, though sales of the brand were down 5.4 percent through November. Dacia's success, and the continuing strength of the luxury segment, reflect a bifurcated sector in which the extremes are doing well while much of the market in the middle stagnates. The brand has also been a boost to Renault's bottom line as competitors have struggled with the downturn in Europe. Renault bought Dacia in 1999, a rusting artifact of the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, who had started the Romanian car company in the 1960s with a stripped-down old Renault 12 design that the dictator declared was "good enough for the idiots." Louis Schweitzer, Renault's former chairman and chief executive, recognized that mass-market cars made for the developed world could not be sold profitably in Europe's emerging markets, so he sought to make Dacia a place to build a new car platform, called the M-zero (or M0), that would be economical, reliable and cost just €5,000. While he did not meet his price target, his gamble paid off when Dacia successfully debuted in 2004, targeting buyers in Eastern Europe and Turkey. To the industry's surprise, it also caught on in Western Europe, especially after the financial crisis hit: Dacia's European sales nearly doubled in 2009 from 2008 to more than 214,000 cars. Today it boasts a full range of pickup trucks, SUVs, and station wagons. Its newest model, the Dacia Duster crossover, starts at €11,900. "Anyone can say we took advantage of the crisis," said Arnaud Deboeuf, the Renault executive who oversees the company's entry-level segment around the world. But there's been a change in buying attitudes in Europe; people don't want to spend so much money on a car now. Mr. Deboeuf said the experience gained by developing a low-cost car from scratch had been hugely beneficial. "You can't offer a car to your customers at an aggressive price if you don't put pressure on your engineers, on sales, marketing, to control and reduce costs," he said. Dacia spends little on marketing, and distribution costs are relatively small, because the cars are sold through existing Renault dealers. And there is no discounting. A big part of keeping costs down is the fact that none of the Dacia models that are sold in Western Europe are made there. Renault's investment in the decrepit business transformed the company and created thousands of new jobs in Romania. But even Romania may be getting too expensive for Renault to hold the line. In April, the company warned the 10,000 workers at its factory in Pitesti, about 70 miles northwest of Bucharest, that it would move some jobs to Morocco if they did not moderate their wage demands. Jake Cigainero contributed reporting