Dacia Lăstun

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The Dacia 500 is a micro car from Dacia, which was manufactured between 1986 and 1989 in Timişoara in Romania. He is popularly known Lăstun, Romanian Schwalbe.

History

In addition to the sedan Dacia 1300 ( from 1969) and the small cars of Oltcit ( from 1982) of the Romanian state would also produce a cheap mini-cars. Under the auspices of the Dacia plant in Pitesti began in 1980 to design such a vehicle. To achieve a low manufacturing cost, as many modules of already existing models of the Romanian manufacturer Dacia, ARO and Oltcit were included in the design. To reduce the manufacturing cost and especially the empty weight of the vehicle even further, it was decided to make the body made ​​of glass fiber reinforced polyester. Since 1982, the first prototypes were tested. Finally, production in 1986 before the production version of the Dacia 500. The two- cylinder in-line petrol engine with 499 cc made ​​17 kW (23 hp). The top speed of the car was 106 km / h The fuel consumption was quite low 3.4 l/100 km, if you moved it no faster than 50 km / hr.

The automobile factory IAT ( Interprinderea de Autoturisme Timişoara - previously Tehnometal ) in Timisoara was modernized in order to produce a sufficient number of the imaginary to the width engine vehicles. But the build quality was poor and the dimensions of the car forth for a family was too small. Thus, the Dacia was 500 not been a great success.