Renault's affordable family car

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Almost custom-built for the Third World, the Logan is a cross-bred Renault-Nissan (it's powered by the same 1.6-litre engine as the new Nissan NP200 bakkie) and is known in different parts of the world as Renault, Dacia and Mahindra.

Production of the right-hand drive Logan started off in India in 2007, clearly with Africa as one of its key target markets.

Already on sale in more than 60 countries around the world, the Logan arrived in South Africa towards the end of 2008 with an attractive introductory price tag of just R99,500. Sadly, thanks mainly to the weakening rand and the wobbly international economy, its price has since jumped to R106,900.

But even so, the Logan still represents a very appealing purchase for low budget families, car rental operators, Government and semi-government institutions, and managers of company car fleets.

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In South African the only model choice is the 1.6-litre Expression and even an excited first-time new car buyer won't be bowled over by its looks.

It's basic and at best one would probably describe it as “clean and neat”. Fairly boxy in shape, the shiny Renault badge, embedded fog lamps, black air intake and two-blader chrome grille slats succeed only partially in drawing attention away from the car's plastic wheel trims, silly small side mirrors and the rather old-fashioned large gaps between body and wheels.

And it doesn't get any more exciting inside once you've shut the tinny clanking doors. The seats are hard, and trying to adjust the driver seat and head-rest to find a reasonably comfortable and safe driving position behind the non-adjustable steering wheel is not easy.

The lay-out is strange, with the buttons for back power windows located directly behind the gear lever and for the front windows, on the central console. And to match it you have plastic imitation chrome air vents, dial surrounds and door levers, and a shiny plastic imitation wood panel which houses the aircon and miniscule radio.

The monotone greyish-cream colour of the dashboard's hard plastic and seat covers doesn't help, nor does the fact that our test car was sprayed rental car white.

Start up and the gruffy engine immediately makes it presence known, but it's more bark than bite with only 64kW and 128Nm to get things going.

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It feels quite perky from the start, helped along by a creamy smooth five-speed manual gearbox, but then it runs out of breath so that it takes a beard-growing 15 seconds to get from zero to 100km/h.

And you can whip it as hard as you can, but even flat-out you are not going to get much more than about 150km/h out of it.

Progress is quite comfortable and smooth if you are not in too much of a hurry and the steering is light and easy, although the Logan is quick to display unpleasant body lean if you get snappy with the wheel.

It's also not too fond of long, steep inclines when it has a full load onboard and it does get a little light on its feet when the Cape's South-Easter is pumping.

But it's certainly not all gloom and doom. There is plenty to like about Eastern-European-Indian-Frenchman, including a spacious cabin which has plenty of room for four broad and tall adults; its acres of boot space, ABS brakes with EBD, generous ground clearance, comfortable ride, very pleasant gear-box, 80 litre fuel tank and a three-year/100,000km warranty.

And even though it has some cut-price features, the car overall feels reasonably solid and well glued together. Certainly our initial impressions are that the Logan is streets ahead of the Chinese cheapies and most other cars in its price range.

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Renault is also committed to providing improved build-quality, better after-sales service and better-priced parts, as was so clearly illustrated by the most recent JD Powers survey in which both the Renault Clio and the Renault Megane scored 81% and higher.

The Logan might not set your hair alight, but it is a good common sense choice in these days of escalating costs and certainly a clever buy for anybody who is in the market for an affordable family car.