A FRIEND might be taking a job behind the bar of a country pub a few miles away from where she lives.

It's a welcoming place but she think it's a bit remote and worries about heading home after an evening shift, with snow falling and the roads turning slippery.

Well, here are two options; both economical and safe, but one such a bargain it ought to make other car makers blush.

Option one is to buy the least expensive 4x4 version of Dacia's cheap and cheerful Duster SUV. That'll cost £11,495 and come with a petrol engine and the essentials of motoring life - and the almost certain knowledge nothing short of a fallen tree will halt its progress.

The second choice is to head up the Duster range ladder and splash out £13,995 on a top diesel Laureate Prime and not bother with all-wheel drive, which adds a stiff two grand to any Duster.

Instead, take comfort in the fact that every version comes with chunkily treaded M+S tyres; shorthand for mud and snow. They should cope with most things an English winter could throw at them.

And if her car couldn't get to the pub in the first place, none of the regulars could either. Better to stay at home and crack open a bottle by the fireside.

In fact, it hardly matters which model of Duster you go for. They are all bargains, with prices starting at £9,495 for a two-wheel drive version with a 1.6 litre petrol engine.

Climb the Duster ladder and you come across four-wheel drive and 1.5 diesel engines and upwardly mobile trim levels until you reach the heights of the Laureate Prime tested here - in all its £13,995 glory.

That doesn't sound much and looks still more of a bargain when you discover what you get for your money.

Standard kit includes air conditioning, cruise control, electric windows all round, remote central locking, trip computer, alloy wheels, steering column controls for the sound system - and satellite navigation with GB and Northern Ireland mapped for you.

Shared across the Duster range is room in the cabin for five and a big boot ready for your holiday luggage. There's also a proper sense of a car built (in Romania by a company now owned by Renault) that will take on the toughest track and laugh at the potholes and patches.

Dacia keeps prices so low by sharing oily bits with Renaults and not offering vast choices of colour and trim. You will also find a ruggedness about everything that's honest and appealing in a car proud to wear its value on its sleeve, but some way from threating an Audi, for instance, on interior ambience.

And you will find sensible cost cutting in everything from the ignition key (which doesn't fold for your pocket) to a driver's seat that adjust for height by sinking under your weight and needs you to dismount to let it rise if you need to sit yourself higher.

Then, the sat nav screen is hard to read and venturing into mainland Europe will need a £90 map update. I'd also find £150 for a proper emergency spare tyre instead of the inflation kit that comes as standard.

These minor points are forgotten when you actually drive the Duster and discover it rides well enough and feels thoroughly modern, with light clutch and gearchange and enough urge to bowl along happily at the national limit.