By Antti Kautonen
Walking on the Helsinki street, I noticed this humble-but-useful Dacia Logan pickup. Since trucklets such as this are favorably looked upon around these parts of the Internet, out came the cameraphone.
The Dacia is a couple years old, with the 1.5-litre Renault-sourced turbodiesel. Of course, everything you see here is Renault-sourced. Even the Volvo S40 behind the Dacia must have a couple of Renault parts onboard.
The Logan is from the time Renault really wanted to focus on Dacia products after a period of mostly selling them in Romania and not much elsewhere. But with the 2006 Logan, Renault went out to produce a world car of sorts, using bits and bobs from old partsbins and covering them with an inoffensive and generic, yet vaguely likeable box of sheetmetal. The Logan first came out as a four-door saloon, but the long-wheelbase wagon (called the MCV, also available as a panel van) and the pickup soon followed.
I predict these will get used up quite quickly: they’re cheap to buy and probably reasonable to run, so no-one has too many reasons to pamper them too much. They’re made to get beaten, not polished.
[Images: Copyriht 2013 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]
Jeff Glucker 
Kamil Kaluski
I didn't know they even made a pickup. The whole Dacia brand is quite likable – their intention is to produce a nice enough car for little money. That means using well-proven parts, lower grade plastics in the interior that cost half as much as you find in the rest of European production, less electrics including even window winders. That's good, even if it might not inspire car guys.
<img src="http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/dacia-logan_mcv_12.jpg"> It's the modern Amazon wagon in spirit, but diesel too!
Now that is a great car to buy. Do pick-up trucks still qualify for the 50mk / 100 kg diesel tax or did they take that away?
Off the top of my head, things are as they were. Note how the Dacia didn't need a bed length extension á la Subaru Targa.
With the miniscule flate rate diesel tax you get around the problem of having to drive to rack up a ton of miles before you even break even against a gasoline powered vehicle. That thing weighs about… 1000kg? So you pay what, 100 euro per year?
Toyota Timangi still is the most blatant pick up tax loophole abuse ever done from the factory.
The Timangi: a car/truck so good it had to be banned.
Some survivors even seem to exist. http://www.nettiauto.com/en/toyota/timangi
Imagine a modern day Timangi: Toyota Aygo pick up truck, brand new for 5000 euro.
Would also need to be RWD for the complete experience. I could imagine things like that being assembled somewhere south.
If you think of it as an experience, yes… I was thinking of it as a cheap brand new commuter that doesn't steal all of your gas savings in the form of a higher insurance premium.
Well another film to add to the list… http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_24500-Toyota-Timangi…
[youtube tKgOhbBIKu4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKgOhbBIKu4 youtube]
You definitely should see Ariel.
Meh, it's not the worst thing I've seen this week.
Cheap and cheerful, although the alloy wheels and front fog lights lend a touch of extravagance…
There's something just not right about the proportions. I want to love it, but the rear wheels need to be a few inches forward.
I see what you mean, but doesn't the ride get better the longer the wheelbase is? I'd vote for function over form any day, because the opposite tendency is what annoys me most with new(-ish) cars
There's something slightly shrunken Ssangyong-ish about the way it looks.