Dacia does not build many cars like the Dacia Dokker: a 4/5-door LAV / 4-door panel van / 2-door pick-up with Petrol engine, built from 2012 as electrification stopped being an experiment and the crossover took every market. Its designer of record is Renault Design Central Europe (RDCE) under the leadership of Laurens van den Acker.
How it came about
The Dacia Dokker is a panel van and leisure activity vehicle (LAV) produced by Dacia at the Renault plant in Tangier, Morocco. The model was unveiled at the 2012 Casablanca Auto Show and was first introduced to the Moroccan market in June 2012. Sales in Romania began in September 2012, after which it was marketed across Europe, North Africa, Turkey, Israel and the French overseas territories. The Dokker was offered in both passenger and panel van configurations, alongside the crossover-inspired Dokker Stepway, which debuted at the 2012 Istanbul Motor Show. The Stepway version adopted exterior styling cues similar to those of the Sandero Stepway.
Depending on the market, the model was sold under different brand names. In the CIS countries and the Middle East, it was marketed as the Renault Dokker, while in Latin America and Algeria it was sold as the Renault Kangoo. This branding strategy avoided direct competition with the French-built Renault Kangoo in markets where both vehicles were available. In 2018, Dacia Italia, in cooperation with the Focaccia Group, introduced a pick-up conversion of the Dokker for the Italian market. In 2020, the Moroccan-built Dokker underwent a facelift and was reintroduced as the Renault Express, replacing both the Dacia Dokker and Renault Dokker.
The hardware
Under the skin sits Petrol engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Kerb weight is 1165 -. The gearbox is a 5-speed manual / 6-speed manual (later models). The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 2810 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Where it sits in Dacia's history is not in doubt: the Dacia Logan I (MCV/Van/Pick-Up) came before it; the Renault Express / Dacia Jogger (passenger version) followed it; it was built at Tangier (Renault. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Mazda CX-5, the Tesla Model X, the Peugeot 208. Its Dacia stablemates include the Dacia 1100 and the Dacia 1210.