Well the real problem was Romania decided to invest a lot of its capital in heavy industry even though it was part of a bloc which had no end of it, I mean the country was run by a former railway worker and Nikolai had been in prison with him as a delinquent youth and had been his helper in prison between that and communist economic doctrine it was never going to turn out well. Romania did have its own oil fields and access to the black sea. They maybe should have tried to be a little more like East Germany or Yugoslavia and buy in their cheap raw materials on favoured terms from the other soviet bloc countries to focus on some higher end industry. They mismanaged their economy so badly they were having to import oil to power all their heavy industry and that is what really got them into trouble even though their industries were horribly loss making on top of that. It would have probably been better if they hadn't bothered with any of it.

I would never own a Dacia but they are actually quite a clever company. Renault ships all their old plant designs to Romania and have them build cheap bare bones slightly updated looking versions of old vehicles. They have sold quite well in England and they are better than they used to be. Some of the early ones were shit but I can see why people have them now.