Erde Tungaa is credited with having designed the original Dacia Duster launched in 2010 as well as the second generation of the compact SUV that’s sold under the Dacia and Renault brands worldwide. After seven successful years and with over a million units sold, the Duster is now sporting a new look, which will be presented at its debut at the forthcoming Frankfurt motor show.
The brief for the new Dacia Duster, laid out by Renault design director Laurens van den Acker, was to create a small 4×4 that was 4.3m long and able to incorporate Sandero’s doors. “The product had to be simple and affordable. This kind of vehicle didn’t exist on the market,” says Tungaa. “In my initial designs in 2007, I wanted to imagine a vehicle that would be simple, sturdy, and practical.”
Tungaa says his inspiration for the first generation of the affordable SUV came in the form of the tried and true Renault 4L, which was sold in huge volumes all over the world and renowned for its simplicity and practicality: “I love its simple, friendly style, free of any useless design features.”
For the new Duster, Tungaa wanted to retain the design simplicity of the original model but also build on it: “The brief was clearly to keep the original spirit of Duster and the vehicle’s genes that made it a bestseller. Of course, seven years later, it’s not only the design that’s changed but also customers’ expectations,” he notes.
“[The] all-new Duster’s design was born of teamwork between our France and Romania design centers,” says Tungaa. “We modernized and beefed up the vehicle’s lines while preserving its original look: front and rear proportions strengthened, belt line raised, grille made more assertive.”
Watch Renault design director Laurens van den Acker, Dacia design director David Durand and exterior designers Erde Tungaa and Emmanuel Klissarov talk about the design genesis of the new Dacia Duster in the video above.
Source: Dacia
