Dacia Sandero: car review

Price £5,995
MPG 47.9
Top speed 97mph

Two questions motoring journalists are often asked: "What's the best car you've driven?" and "What's the worst?" The first is hard, as the "best" is always the car doing the job you need doing. An economical estate to take you to Scotland – step forward the Skoda Octavia; a hair-raising spin through the tree-canopied lanes of Kent – that'll be the McLaren 12C; a show-boater for the streets of Chelsea – how about a gullwinged Mercedes SLS? The second is almost impossible because, as the cliché goes, they don't really make crap cars any more – until now. Let me introduce you to the Dacia Sandero – the worst car I have ever driven.

Like all black-and-white statements, that rather simplifies the point, because the Sandero is also the cheapest new car in Britain. Not just cheap, but arse-out, rock-bottom cheap. It costs £5,995, which is £10,000 cheaper than the average price for a new car. So, when viewing it through this prism of "shocking affordability", one is forced to reevaluate. The Sandero has no fancy extras – in fact, it has no extras; it's barely got the basics. It has wind-up windows, no radio, squidgy seats, no central locking, no spare wheel. The unforgiving plastic dashboard is bereft of buttons, dials, read-outs – the car does nothing, so there is nothing to control. It doesn't so much seem basic as brutally regressive. It feels like the car your dad used to moan about driving 20 years ago, unlocking his door with a key, then leaning over to pull up the buttons on the three other doors.

Dacia says it is able to offer cars at these prices by stripping its production of waste and "making an enemy of the unnecessary". I'd disagree with them on what is unnecessary.

Dacia (pronounced Da-chi-a) hails from Romania and has a history going back to pre-Iron Curtain motoring – a low point for any product, not just cars. In 1999 Renault bought the firm and began turning Dacia into its own in-house budget brand – in the same way that VW has made Skoda its secret weapon of mass manufacturing. The great surprise has been how unanimously Europe has taken the skin-flint Sandero to its heart – the Romanian brand has been the fastest-growing on the continent for the past eight years and last year sold 350,000 vehicles. Now it's our turn to get on board.

The 1.2-litre petrol engine is loud and high-revving, but eager enough. The car has done remarkably well in reliability tests, and Dacia clearly believes in its product, as it comes with a five-year warranty.

From the outside the Sandero looks anonymous, but if you are paying less than six grand maybe that's a blessing. Inside it's bunker basic, but in a way its honest simplicity and rustic finishing is curiously likable. It's been built for the roughest roads of Europe, so it will be able to cope with ours here, and it handles better than you might expect on the motorway – though you won't be able to hear yourself think, let alone the nonexistent radio. It's also usefully roomy – most cheap cars are small. On closer inspection, you'll notice Dacia has been good enough to include power steering, airbags and ABS brakes. So there are some niceties.

The worst car I have ever driven, yes, but also the best car I have ever driven that costs less than £6,000.

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk