DACIA

The company was founded in 1966 as Uzină de Autoturisme Pitești, and its main factory opened in 1968 at Colibași, now Mioveni. Dacia bought the tooling and basic design of the Renault 12, and until that was ready it built the Renault 8 under licence as the Dacia 1100; 37,546 were made between 1968 and 1972.

The first Dacia 1300 left the line in time for the 23 August parade of 1969 and became the car Romanians waited years for. The Romanian government sold the company to Groupe Renault in 1999, after 33 years. Dacia is Romania’s largest company by revenue and its largest exporter, 8 percent of the country’s exports in 2018.