2025 Dacia Bigster Review: A Different Kind Of Horse Power

When we talk about horsepower at Car Throttle, it’s usually some kind of 500bhp+ performance car that we’ll describe with words like ‘punchy, quick, engaging’, but today, that’s not the case.

Instead, we’ll be telling you about Horse power. Last year, Renault (who you know) and Geely (which owns Lotus, Polestar and Volvo, in case you didn’t know) teamed up to establish Horse, a new powertrain operation focusing on internal combustion engines that both groups can use across its many brands.

The first of these is a car branded neither a Renault nor a Geely. Nor anything you’d necessarily expect to spearhead a new bit of technology.

Once known for a certain floppy-haired television presenter pre-tensing updates from the brand with Great News!, Dacia has gone on to establish itself as a staple of the UK new car market. Largely, it’s done that by trading on its value for money propositions, but it helps that the cars are genuinely pretty good.

Yet, despite the success of the Sandero in the endangered supermini market and the Duster stealing our hearts, it’s never had a contender in the UK’s most popular new car segment. Until now.

Meet this, the Dacia Bigster, the biggest SUV yet from the plucky budget brand. Something to take on the Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sportage at last.

So, where does Horse factor into this? Well, you can have the Bigster with a pick of three engines. Two of those are 1.2-litre three-cylinder engines with front–wheel drive or a bonafide 4x4 system, nothing groundbreaking there as we’ve seen those on the Duster. Yet, at the top of the range is the first Horse hybrid.

The powertrain is based on a 1.8-litre naturally-aspirated four-cylinder, which is then linked up to a 50bhp electric motor drawing power from a dinky little 1.4kWh battery pack. A combined 153bhp and 125lb ft of torque is delivered to the front wheels in a pretty complex manner – the engine is connected to a four-speed automatic gearbox, while the electric bits have a separate two-speed unit.

How that works exactly is a little beyond our mechanical comprehension, but the result of that setup is something we can tell you quite easily. It’s pretty good.

The most impressive thing about this Horse is its efficiency. Dacia’s quoted figures will tell you it’ll return 60.1mpg, and delightfully, that’s pretty close to the truth. A couple of days across mixed route driving returned 55mpg in our experience.

There’s no real electric-only range to speak of, given how small the battery is, but it does come into effect when starting up and at lower speeds. The transition of propulsion from the motors to the engine is largely seamless as well, to the point that you often forget how complex the setup actually is. That is a good thing.

Granted, this Horse isn’t going to threaten the competition at the Cheltenham Festival. Largely because, as a car, it’s not eligible to compete in events. But also, it’s not what we’d call quick – a sub-10 second 0-62mph easily bested by the likes of the Nissan Qashqai e-Power and hybrid versions of the Kia Sportage.

Not that it matters a great deal in a C-segment SUV, and it’s about OK enough for merging on motorways and hopping out of junctions, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

It does the other daily stuff exceptionally well. Even on the 19-inch wheel option, the largest available, the soft-set suspension and chunky tyres do a remarkable job of absorbing lumps and bumps in the road. It does a great job of isolating you from road and wind noise, too.

Steering isn’t what we’d call direct, nor is it exciting to thrash down a back road, but that means it’s a breeze to scoot around town in, and really that’s all most Bigster buyers are going to care about.

That, and how much it’ll cost – and realistically, that’ll be the most important factor. The news there is Great! (Sorry.) Pricing for the Dacia Bigster starts at £24,995 for a 1.2-litre car, topping out at £29,495 if you go for a top-spec Extreme hybrid.

A Qashqai starts above that at £30,135, and if you opt for the full bells-and-whistles e-Power, that’ll be £42,980. An entry Sportage is £29,890, right up to £42,790 for a regular hybrid (and more still for the plug-in.

You’ll feel that gap in places throughout the interior, with lots of hard-wearing plastics. The poshest upholstery material is a sort of microfibre akin to what you’d see on your nan’s magnetic iPad case. It’s not bad, just not amazing.

You are getting a lot of kit you’d actually want and use for the money, though. That top-spec gets you a panoramic opening sunroof, adaptive cruise control and an electric tailgate.

All versions get a crisp 10.1-inch central infotainment system, too, and it’s absolutely fine. The software isn’t the most packed out with features, but you’ll get navigation and the ability to mirror your phone with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, which is about all you need

That should all keep you happy up front, and the impressive head- and legroom in the back should leave your passengers in a pretty content mood too. Oh, and the boot is massive at 612 litres for the hybrid – more still if you go for a 1.2-litre car, the 4x4 measuring 629 litres and a whopping 677 litres for the front-driven version.

Really, then, the Dacia Bigster is a car that offers everything you could possibly need, if perhaps not all that you’d want. Hard to argue with that fact, given the money it costs, really. Expect to see many, many of them outside of a supermarket near you soon.