Made it in life: Dacia Denem

[Andrew353w]

Sam,

 

TRULY EPIC!!! What a find and in what looks (at first sight) quite decent nick! The story behind this find needs telling....

 

My Fedora has been suitably donned...

[RedSparrow]

I wonder if the Liberta was ever sold in English-speaking countries?

 

I'm going to guess that those brochures were an attempt to claw back a few UK Dacia dealerships. 'Liberta' suggests post-revolution, early 90s.

Pretty poor attempt though, this thing makes a Favorit look advanced.

[Guest]

I want to have hot man-sex with that car, all day, every day. OP, you are the rulingest chodgatherer of the wide world.

[warren t claim]

I urge you take it to your local Dacia dealer and demand a full service.

[YugoLada]

That's just amazing - pure Autoshite. Where did you find it?

[garycox]

 

Incredible!

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought these were extict.

 

EXCELLENT WORK!

 

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

There's nothing left to say. Autoshite has been won. Forever.

 

I've seen a Liberta in the flesh- used to live near me when I was a teenager in Greece. I think they only sold them in a small number of 'Western' countries for a very brief period of time.

[skoda_fan]

Nice one, Sam. Love it!

[tooSavvy]

I urge you take it to your local Dacia dealer and demand a full service.

 

....aye, and ask in the Service Dept if you could have an 'upgrade' to the Sandero SatNav mod

 

Them Renault techhies would have a $h1t!

 

tooSavvy

[holbeck]

Wow! Total respect for that one. It looks like a complete honey.

[Angrydicky]

Incredible. I also thought the UK market Denem was extinct, good to see it's not (quite!)

 

Is pretty much everything a clone of the Renault 12, or are there some unique parts? Looks in pretty good condition and a nice project as well, well done.

 

You just need a UK market RHD Lonsdale to complete the collection now.

[chaseracer]

My recent epic attic sortout uncovered a very acceptable Denem brochure...

[rml2345]

Epic tat finding skills! Those brochures are superb too...

Well done!

[HillmanImp]

There were a couple of old dears in East Preston in the 80s that had one of these. Its a fucking ace find.

 

Sam, you are probably a good person to ask about finding a UK spec Malaga. If you become aware of one drop me a line.

[Wilko220]

You legend

[500tops]

We require background information!

 

P'raps the best thing I've seen this year.

[Black_GT]

Amazing! I'm so happy there's actually one left!

[Albert Ross]

I used to work at a Dacia dealrs in Wiltshire.... We had a Shifter as a runabout, and a Duster as a loan car. It was also a Yugo dealership...! My, we did have fun when they kept trying shortcuts through the Forest... all the top deck cars were damaged by low hanging trees.....

[Lord Sterling]

THAT is truly amazing, sir. You are a WINNAH. Forever.

 

My uncle in Syria, then a manager at the Sheraton Hotel in Damascus used to have the Renault 12 version of these as his everyday car. I'm sure I've a photo somewhere......

[ChinaTom]

Blimey - what a fatastic find! I love the fact that even a rear view mirror was considered an unnecessary luxury for the first owner. I'm pretty sure all Eastern Bloc cars from that era had that even on the most basic versions.

 

Good luck with the Liberta search. Back in the late 90's you could find a few battered examples of these in the suburbs of Beijing. All long gone now - they didn't seem to be made to the same standard* as the Mosks and Ladas. I also remember a white one parked up abandoned in the yard of an engineering firm in Shenyang, and it was in good company with an Axel rotting away in the next bay. A few cars like these were imported at the same time as some of these firms were bringing in heavy duty presses and other machinery from Skoda - probably a "gift" / "backhander" type of thing.

 

This thread has totally made my morning.

[Rocket88]

Shame it's not an automatic, it would be worth £40,000.......................

[Guest]

I wonder if the people who had their modern cars on the same transporter are all now complaining that they and/or their cars have caught Bubonic Plague from the Dacia. I bet the transporter driver was entertained, albeit maybe a bit worried that his straps would cut through the chassis and the whole thing would fall off.

[RedSparrow]

[cms206]

Sweet mother of mercy! What a guy!

[CortinaDave]

These are the car of choice in Northern Cyprus - that and the Renault version. Theres loads of the buggers there, all in "how can that possibly still be in use" condition

[Mr_Bo11ox]

These things are so impossibly shit its extraordinary. What a find. I remember helping my mate repair the rotten floor of his one on an unsurfaced Bucharest side street. I made a reasonable stab of removing the entire floorpan using a hammer and chisel. Then I tried to weld it up using a stick welder but failed, so he was going to get his uncle on the case. I don’t know if they ever managed to stitch the big flat piece of rusty steel sheet actually into the car though, it certainly didn’t look hopeful to me but maybe they had Cuban-style pavement panel-bashing skills.

 

The Liberta is thunderously crap, I will eat my hat if Dacia managed to get any of those onto the other side of the iron curtain. 5 speed box sounds good though - did Renault ever offer a 12 with a 5-speeder?

 

My favourite Dacia is the mutant crew cab pick up that is an estate with a bulkhead behind the rear seat and a 2-ft long ‘pickup bed’ out back with a sawn-off estate tailgate. Only ever saw a couple of those and that was back in about 2005, they must be pretty much extinct now even in Romania.

[Lacquer Peel]

I didn't see any Dacias in Northern Cyprus, they were all Turkish R12s I think.

 

Those crew cabs are hilarious.

 

The later ones look slightly more competent, there was one on eBay UK recently with a Renault diesel engine.

[ProgRocker]

Nice Dacia, Sam. WINNER!

 

That fiable 1325 Liberta looks like Dacia's (misproportioned) answer to the Lada Samara. I believe Dacia eventaully came up with a more sensible hatchback design, based loosely on the Peugeot 309.

[Partridge]

I’m so excited I’ve been jumping on the bed and I wet myself.

That is pure sex on wheels. Want some.

[Bren]

Does anybody remember the newspaper ads for dacia in the 80's? I seem to remember they would occupy a very small section of a page, usually near the back - if you were interested then you would have to send for details.

 

Top buy.