The first Duster was not a Dacia design: it was the ARO 10, built by ARO at Câmpulung Muscel and sold in Britain under the Dacia badge from 1984 to 1993, and as the Dacia 10 in some other export markets. Its four-wheel drive was selectable, through a transfer case, with a two-wheel-drive option.
ARO built the 10 Series from 1980 on Dacia 1300 mechanicals, and the four-wheel-drive version went to Britain through a Dacia concessionaire at Westbury, Wiltshire; three distributors handled it over the period. The Dacia name was used because British buyers already knew it from the Denem, a licence-built Renault 12. It was priced from £4,995 against £8,606 for a Land Rover 90, as a hard-top utility, a pick-up and a Roadster. The 1.2-litre petrol engine gave way to a 1.4-litre, and a 1.9-litre Renault diesel followed. The full model history is under ARO, which built it; the Duster name returned on Dacia's own SUV in 2010.
Research status: draft — identification, dates or figures could not all be pinned down; the summary says what is unresolved.
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.
Body styles & colours
Body style
Factory colours
Brick Red
Blue
Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.
Imagery
No published image yetA rendering impression or a free-licence photograph will appear here once one is published
