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Pros: Massive inside, comfort, styling, practicality, fuel economy
Cons: Some refinement issues, cheap plastics, not the quickest
Dacia Bigster Design
The Dacia Bigster — appropriately named because it’s the biggest car Dacia has ever built — carries over much of the styling of the hugely popular Duster. You get the same Y-shaped daytime running lights, the same bonnet with its chunky square-edged bits and the same neat rear lights that don’t cross over into the boot lid. There’s also some nice protective plastic edging for the wheel arches and the bumpers, made from partly recycled polypropylene and which Dacia calls ‘Starkle.’ It’s dyed in the mould, so there’s no paint surface to scuff nor scrape, and it gives the Bigster a properly rugged look, backed up by a lofty ride height.
You might, at a glance, mistake a Bigster for the Duster, but the more you look at it — especially in the new Indigo Blue paint with a contrast black roof — the more you start to think that it’s a bit classier and more upmarket. That’s appropriate, as the Bigster’s job is to move Dacia up a grade into the so-called ‘C-segment’ of the European car market, taking on the likes of the Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sportage.
Dacia Bigster Interior
There’s a lot of Duster influence inside, especially the plastic surfaces, which are made of cheap plastic, no question, but which get interesting shapes, colours and textures so make them look and feel less downmarket. It’s a clever touch, lifting what would otherwise feel a cheap cabin if you’d just stepped out of, say, a Kia Sportage or a Toyota RAV4. Equally, Dacia has clearly worked hard to make regular touch points such as the steering wheel and the hybrid model’s automatic gear selector look and feel pleasant to the touch.
The front seats are excellent, and the driving position is more comfortable than that of the Duster, especially for taller drivers. There’s plenty of storage space too, including the option of a deep storage box under the front seat armrest.
The Bigster will be the first Dacia to come with a touchscreen infotainment display as standard, and it’s a 10.1-inch unit for all models, with integrated Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It’s a fairly simple screen to use, and that’s much to its credit, helped by keeping proper buttons for the air conditioning system (also standard). The driver gets a neat digital display, equally simple and clear to read, and that varies between seven inches and ten inches across, depending on the model.
If the front seat passengers are comfortable, wait until you get in the back. The rear seats are just as good as the ones in the front, and there’s an acreage of legroom and headroom too.
The Bigster’s at its biggest in the boot. In the front-wheel-drive petrol mild-hybrid versions, this stretches to a whopping 702 litres up to the luggage cover, or a van-like 2,002 litres if you fold down the three-way-split back seats (using the handy levers inside the boot). In the hybrid model we’re testing here, you do lose some boot space to the battery, but there’s still a massive 612 litres available.
Plus, you can turn the Bigster into a mobile house. There’s an optional ‘Sleep Pack’ which clips into the boot, and which unfolds into a 1.9-metre futon-style bed, and if you need more space, there’s an available tent which clips onto the back of the boot.
Dacia Bigster Hybrid 155 Performance & Drive
The Bigster lineup will start with a 140hp version of the familiar turbocharged 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine, this time around with mild-hybrid assistance and a six-speed manual gearbox. There’s also a 130hp version of this engine, and that can run on LPG fuel as well. Plus, there’s a four-wheel-drive model powered by the 130hp engine.
However, the best-seller in Ireland is likely to be this Hybrid 155 model, which as you might have guessed, has 155hp. It uses a 1.8-litre petrol engine. It also has a complicated four-speed-plus-electric-motor gearbox which is almost impossible to explain without taking on a university night course, and that does occasionally let the engine drone on a bit too much, but you do get used to it.
You’ll certainly forgive it when you see the fuel consumption — Dacia quotes 4.6 litres per 100km, and we saw 5.3 litres per 100km in mixed driving, which is really good. It helps that the Bigster is actually quite light.
To drive, the Bigster is really relaxed, and thankfully it doesn’t even bother trying to be sporty. The suspension is quite soft and so it rolls along in a calm fashion. Wind and tyre noise do build up a bit at higher speeds, but for the most part the Bigster’s a really calming car to drive.
What it doesn’t do so well is handle really tight and twisty roads — the steering is just too light, and the front suspension too soft for that, but then who’s going to look at a Bigster and reckon ‘Yeah, that’s a sports car in disguise…’
Straight-line performance is fine, thanks to a combination of 172Nm of torque from the engine and 205Nm from the electric motor. Again, it’s no performance car, but it’s perfectly adequate for family life, and if you need to tow, the hybrid can manage up to 1,000kg on a braked trailer (although the petrol mild-hybrid models can cope with 1,500kg).
Dacia Bigster Pricing
We don’t know Irish prices for the Bigster just yet, as the first Irish cars won’t arrive until May. However, it’s likely to cost around €30,000 for the most basic model. Our high-spec Hybrid 155 test car, in Journey trim, is likely to cost around €38-40,000, but to put that in perspective, that’s the top-spec model for the same price as a base-spec Nissan Qashqai or Hyundai Tucson. Standard kit will include the 10.1-inch screen, mobile phone connectivity, air conditioning and 17-inch alloy wheels, while options will include an electric tailgate, dual-zone air conditioning, electric adjustment for the driver’s seat and 19-inch alloys.
Carzone Verdict
The Bigster might just be the best Dacia yet. It hasn’t thrown out the traditional Dacia value-for-money mindset baby with the bathwater of a move into a more lucrative end of the car market, and it should prove very tempting for existing owners of mid-sized SUVs who’ve seen their cost-of-change prices creep ever upwards in the last few years. A big, roomy, Dacia that’s more sophisticated, yet still affordable? Sign us up.