Fiat Grande Panda - long-term review

Small cars are stylish again! Of course, Fiat has been churning out the fashionable 500 since 2007, but Renault is now back in the game with the 5 and the Twingo, Hyundai has brought its Parametric Pixel design language to a compact hatch with the Ioniq 3, the Kia EV2 looks like a baby Stormtrooper, and Honda has even shipped the Super-N – a sporty, widebody version of its N-One kei car – over to our shores. Nothing like a healthy bit of competition.

Fiat’s counterpunch to all of that is the Grande Panda, and it might actually be the cutest of the bunch. Okay, it loses points for almost being a crossover, but that’s because pretty much everything in the Stellantis stable is these days.

The Big(ish) Panda still manages to take inspiration from the boxy, Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed original, but there are also funky modern touches like the pixel lights up front (let’s hope Hyundai’s lawyers aren’t paying attention), the PANDA name stamped into the doors and the protruding clear covers for the taillights.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the design is a bit of a winner: the Grande Panda’s look was overseen by François Leboine, who joined the company as head of design in 2021 from Renault… having just penned the reborn Renault 5 concept. Not a bad CV he’s building.

And I might be biased, but I think our Panda looks particularly charming in its minty green ‘Acqua Azure’ metallic paint. That’s actually the only option (£750) ticked to build on the already-top-spec £23,495 La Prima trim. For that relatively affordable list price you get 17in alloy wheels, roof rails, electric mirrors, LED daytime running lights, automatic climate control and a Winter Pack (heated front seats, heated steering wheel and heated windscreen) on top of everything already on the mid-range Icon and entry-level Pop trims.

There are plenty of little Easter Eggs inside that I’m sure I’ll discover over the next six months, but top-level stuff to mention now is the excellent blue interior with lurid yellow accents, the 10in digital dial display, wireless phone charging and the 10.25in central touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It might be small, but it’s not short on tech.

I should probably also point out that while you can have the Grande Panda in all-electric form, we’ve gone for the Hybrid version with its 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine and teeny 0.9kWh battery. Sound familiar? Well, it’s the same setup as used in every small Stellantis product at the moment, and essentially exactly what powered the Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida that I’ve just handed back.

Slightly less power in the Panda though, so while the Alfa had 143bhp to drive its front wheels, I’ll now have to make do with just 109bhp and 151lb ft of torque. Surely that’s still plenty for a little Panda though? Just remember what Fiat used to do with just 100hp…