Fiat Panda review
by Ross Finlay (14 January 2004)
The new Fiat Panda goes on sale on Saturday 17 January, and it turns out to have been a very close-run thing that it didn't continue with the model name of the pre-production version.
One faction within Fiat liked the idea of reviving Panda, but another argued that the 21st-century car was away ahead of the kind of basic, budget-class specification offered by its predecessor, and suggested the name Gingo instead.
Many observers felt this made-up name was hopeless, not least because outsiders would have to be educated to pronounce it to rhyme with Jingo rather than with . . . um, something like Gringo without the "r".
Anyway, Gingo it was going to be. Fortunately, a French spanner was then thrown into the works. With just a few weeks to go before the international launch last year, Renault gave official notification that it was going to take action because the name was too close to its own Twingo. Legal opinion seemed to agree - and Panda was given the last-minute nod. Whew!
The new Panda is right in the heartland of where Fiat has placed most of its really successful models - the small city car sector. But it's a lot bigger than the Seicento, and it's far more refined than any of the original Panda models ever were. There are Far Eastern rivals in this class, but the Fiat seems to be an example of a major European manufacturer really getting its act together. It's a car of which we aren't likely to make criticisms of the "of course, you have to bear in mind the price" persuasion.
The five-door body seems to me to look better in the metal than in photographs. In particular, the C-pillar treatment doesn't appear awkward in real life, especially when you take into account that the rear cabin is unexpectedly roomy.
Due to the fact that cars at the UK launch were substantially outnumbered by the journalists who turned up to drive them, my own motoring was committed three-up, and I wouldn't say that either I or my companions qualified as modestly-proportioned in all dimensions.
We fitted in fine. Our tallest driver (6'2" or so) managed to conduct the machine without scraping his head along the roof lining, and, with a certain amount, but not too much, of the usual give-and-take about front passenger seat positioning, the rear cabin was a lot roomier than we'd been expecting.
Fiat's suggestion that "the Panda's unique design combines the road presence and elevated driving position of a small SUV with the space and flexible practicality of an MPV" isn't an example of a PR department cramming in as many options as a single sentence will carry without collapsing. This is a versatile and easy-to-drive entry in a highly competitive class.
Up front, the console-mounted gearlever - slick-acting, too - releases a fair amount of floor space. There's a well-stocked array of push-button controls higher up the console, and it's only at the top that you can see how somebody held in the stylists' equivalent of Guantanamo Bay didn't quite get away with duplicating what he'd previously decided on for the <Multipla> - the reason, of course, for his indefinite detention without trial.
Fiat has given the Panda some bright and attractive body colours, and a certain liveliness also manifests itself in the trim materials. The whole presentation seems carefully arranged to appeal to a wide range of buyers - and I'm sure this is a car which will attract many female customers.
We'll go into the specification, performance and equipment levels in more detail, I hope, after a test session on home ground. For the moment, let's say that the Panda is being launched on the UK market with two engine options, three trim levels and six individual versions of the basic design.
The trim levels are the familiar Active, Dynamic and Eleganza, and the Dynamic mini-range includes the Aircon, SkyDome and Sound versions, whose names are pretty well self-explanatory, featuring manual air conditioning, a double-panel glass electric sunroof and an enhanced audio system, as well as various other add-ons.
At launch there are two eight-valve petrol engines: a 54bhp 1.1-litre and a 60bhp 1.2-litre which can be specified with a Dualogic clutchless sequential-shift transmission in place of the standard five-speed manual box.
With two journalists in a car there are usually arguments about which engine does best, and with three there are even more. On the test drives, our general opinion seemed to be that the 1.1-litre was unexpectedly good, but that the (slightly) bigger engine came into its own on the motorway. There, the Panda was certainly quieter and more refined than you expect from something in the city car class.
One obvious question, of course, is why isn't there a 1.3-litre 16-valve MultiJet turbo diesel? The answer is that everybody and his granny wants supplies - Vauxhall, Opel and Suzuki, for example, as well as Fiat itself - and there's a limit to just how many of these excellent engines Fiat GM Powertrain (as usual, note the order of the names here) can turn out. It's coming to the UK market, though, but we'll have to wait till some time this summer.
Right now, the range starts with the 1.1 Active, the only Panda to use the smaller engine, at a very competitive £6295. The 1.2 Dynamic is priced at £6895, with the Aircon, SkyDome and Sound versions all in the catalogue at £7495. Top of the range is the 1.2 Eleganza at £8095.
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