For European Car Buyers, Cheap Is Now Chic

Wolfgang Hirschauer, a toolmaker from the Bavarian ski town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, last year traded in his Renault Espace minivan for a Dacia Logan, a budget wagon that sells for a quarter the price. “I was looking for a car for transportation only,” says the father of three. “I liked the low cost and the basic features,” including easy-to-fix mechanics, which made up for the lack of frills such as power windows.

Hirschauer’s choice reflects a broad back-to-basics thriftiness in crisis-strapped Europe, coupled with a deeper shift in Continental attitudes as cars lose their importance as a status symbol. “Automobiles are not a show-off item anymore,” says Arnaud Deboeuf, a director at Renault, which owns Dacia. “People prefer investing in iPads or smartphones over cars.” After acquiring Dacia in 1998, Renault intended to use the Romanian automaker to attract first-time buyers in Eastern Europe and other emerging markets. Following the Logan’s introduction in 2004, that plan changed as price-conscious Western Europeans began buying the cars in the East and bringing them back home.