It’s official – the Dacia Duster is the Carbuyer Car of the Year 2025!

The results are in for the Carbuyer Best Car Awards 2025, and the Dacia Duster has been crowned this year’s outright winner.

The latest generation of the small SUV impressed across the board, with its practical interior, choice of efficient engines, and excellent value. It builds upon the successful formula established by its predecessors – the first-generation model was named Carbuyer Car of the Year in 2013, while the second-generation topped this year’s Driver Power owner’s survey – so we have no doubt that the latest Duster will continue to find plenty of favour with British car buyers.

Not only did the Duster pick up the overall trophy, it was also voted the winner of the Best Small Family Car category, beating its many small SUV rivals. For a full list of this year’s winners across every category, you can read our full rundown of Carbuyer Best Car Award winners 2025.

We were mightily impressed by the third generation Dacia Duster when we drove it earlier this year. It represents a big leap forward from the last model in several key areas, delivering much improved interior technology and the choice of a hybrid engine, all while retaining astonishing value for money. It really does package all the things we value here at Carbuyer, and is a worthy winner of our Car of the Year award.

The fact that the Duster also won the Best Small Family Car award is a testament to how complete a package it is. It’s up against some big sellers in the small SUV market, including the best-selling Ford Puma, yet the Duster offers practically everything that families could need for less money.

The Carbuyer Car of the Year Awards 2025 also saw some impressive results in other categories. It will be an awards event to remember for Skoda – the Czech brand picked up three class wins for Best Family Car, Best Large Family Car and Best Estate Car with the Octavia, Kodiaq and Superb, respectively. 

Some of last year’s winners remained undefeated in 2025, including the BMW 2 Series Coupe which won the Best Sports Car award and the Lexus NX which was crowned Best Large Plug-In Hybrid. The Cupra Born and Tesla Model Y retained their Best Small and Large Company Car titles, as well.

You can read our in-depth review of the Dacia Duster here…