Starting in the early 1980s, Dacia began studies for the development of a car less than three meters in length, intended for urban use. The front-wheel drive car was the first Dacia with a transverse engine. The Renault Cléon engine was discarded, for the benefit of a new 2-cylinder in-line designed by the Romanian Institute of Bucharest on the basis of the 4-cylinder used by Oltcit, a brand created by agreements between the Romanian government and Citroen. The 499cc engine derives from the 4-cylinder used on the Citroen GSA. The construction of the new car, called 500 Lastun, began in 1985 but the marketing took place only in 1989, the year of the fall of the Ceausescu regime. Filled with reliability and build quality issues, the car only remains in production for two years, with just 6,000 units sold.