In recession, Dacia is bucking the region's sliding sales. In the first half of this year, the company sold 141,278 passenger cars in the EU 17.6 % more than it sold during the same period last year. That's the biggest percentage increase in Europe, an impressive result in a market that fell 6.6%in that period according to data from the European Automobile Manufactures' Association. Dacia's success isn't just to the worst car market Europe has experienced in decades. Analysts say the company was thriving even before the crisis, simply because they have no competition. Historically, doing a low-cost car is something that nobody wants to do," said analyst Carlos Da Silva of IHS Automotive. Intellectually, culturally nobody was prepared to do it. because the culture of car companies is driven by engineers and engineers want to perpetually innovate. Building a low-cost car requires a different kind of thinking. Renault took over the Dacia brand in the 1990s with the intention of building a car for central and eastern europe, essentially building a better Lada, the Russian clunkers that dominated the market in the Eastern Bloc. It was started quite selling well, the Dacias were also tested in western Europe. Darcia is still small, representing just 2.5 percent of the European market, but Da Silva says it is buoying its parent company, Renault Dacias rely on Renault parts and the cars sell under the Renault brand in places like Argentina , Brazil and Russia. Nothing is keeping carmakers from entering this market. Volkswagen is now looking to move into the low-cost market, and Hyundai and Toyota are already there to a certain extent. That's not the competitor he's thinking about when a Dacia is designed."Our main competitor today is the used-car market."