Dacia Jogger: A superb seven-seater or a van, you select

How’s this for a gap? The Dacia Jogger is really easy to make use of an fool can convert it from seven-seater individuals provider to a two-seater van in two minutes flat. I do know this as a result of I simply did.

There you go, and it’s true, with only a few levers and toggles your Jogger can rework itself, and with no nice bodily or mental calls for on its proprietor. It is good. I believe Dacia would have a winner right here in the event that they introduced it as a versatile multi-purpose car quite than at all times referring to it as the most cost effective seven-seater automobile in the marketplace, beginning at £14,495. It has little competitors in that area of interest, with the Land Rover Discovery and Audi A7 vastly extra expensive, and the enjoyable Citroen Berlingo XL solely out there as an electrical car, at round £32,000.

So the Jogger has this area of interest available in the market to itself, however I’m sorry to say lots of people – nicely, almost everybody – may at take a look at that supply and determine that they don’t really want seven seats, and thus fail to understand the Jogger’s astonishing versatility. Nevertheless it’s nice enjoyable messing with altering the automobile’s configuration, and with two rows of cut up rear seats it may be a two-, three-, five-, six- or seven-seater with commensurately giant or small boot house stretching again from a one-metre vast and two-metres-high hatch. You’ll be able to take the again pair of light-weight seats out fully in case you like, and use them for a picnic. Or no matter.

So it’s an thrilling form of automobile, and naturally being a Dacia it’s wonderful worth, and the vary topping “Excessive” model at £17,395 even runs to heated entrance seats and a rear parking digicam, in addition to the handbook air-con, fundamental cruise management and touchscreen you get as customary on all of the fashions.

In case you’re remotely bothered, the most recent Dacias now not rely a lot on dad or mum Renault’s hand-me-down dated know-how, so the Jogger is pretty much as good to drive because the up to date Clio it’s associated to. Which means a quite delicate, snug journey and cheap efficiency from the thrummy three-cylinder engine. It’s removed from refined, however it’s enjoyable to chuck about and it invitations a little bit of a thrashing to get the perfect out of it.

Indoors, it’s trendy and recent sufficient. The touchscreen is, predictably, a bit fundamental nevertheless it’s obtained DAB, satnav and Android and Apple connectivity, so that you’ve obtained what you want. I’d have really most well-liked just a few extra handbook buttons, however there we’re. The management pods behind the steering wheel for the radio and the cruise management are a bit old-fashioned and fiddly to make use of, however anybody who’s pushed a French automobile will really feel immediately at house (the Dacia is in-built Romania, by the best way).

I did just like the vaguely SUV styling with its curved Volvo-style back lights and piano black alloy wheels. The raised top will assistance on nation lanes and the like, which brings me to the one actual criticism I’ve concerning the Jogger. You see, the brand new typeface Dacia is utilizing for its badging signifies that the “J” in Jogger is so squared off it appears barely just like the phrase “Dogger” at a look, which is actually not the picture you’d need. Except after all you’re a proud member of Britain’s dogging neighborhood, during which case the chances of a automobile with seven seats are countless. You do the maths, as they are saying.