Why is it that inexpensive yet upbeat car design is now an almost exclusively retro thing? Instead of pushing for upscale desires, why not show a deep appreciation for simply how well an affordable car can be an affordable car? It seems like almost every automaker’s going down the road of soft-touch, angry plastic road droids for a technocratic future, but not every automaker is Fiat. The Italian brand has unveiled something called the Grande Panda, and while it’s made for Europe with its ‘la dolce vita’ disposition, it’s a front-wheel-drive subcompact crossover with hybrid or electric power that looks perfect for America.
Several of Fiat’s recent offerings have traded heavily on heritage looks, but not the Grande Panda. Instead of leaning into retro fashion over functionality, this Fiat is a modern five-door front-wheel-drive mini-crossover that hits all the funky spots. I mean, the name “Panda” is embossed down each side of the car to add stiffness to the doors and break up the sheetmetal in an unusual way. How amusing is that?
Add in headlights like one of those LED-matrix rave masks, available white steel wheels, and a great color palette including bright red, seafoam green, lemon yellow, and the right shade of copper brown, and the Fiat Grande Panda seems both cheap and properly cheerful, a rare combination in today’s automotive landscape of premium aspirations.
Step inside, and the cheap and cheerful theme continues. The base model Grande Panda doesn’t even come with infotainment, but it does come with a smartphone holster with NFC connectivity and hard keys. After all, the screen you bring with you everywhere is probably more powerful than the infotainment system in your car, right? You can upgrade to a 10.25-inch infotainment screen, but believe me when I say that the tech is the least interesting part of the interior.
It’s the colors, the materials, the design, the storage options, and the way it all comes together that really makes the cockpit of the Fiat Grande Panda notable. The dual gloveboxes look handy, available colorways including blue-and-grey are fun, and Fiat claims to use the materials from 140 recycled bottles in every Grande Panda. That’s just smart. Beyond that, the surround for the screens is a sort of long oval with a little car on it like the test track on the roof of the Lingotto factory, the profile of the dashboard is semi-circular, and the dashboard trims come in fun options like bamboo fiber or striped finishes.
Sounds great so far, but what’s under the hood? Well, the Grande Panda offers two different propulsion methods, so let’s start with the hybrid powertrain — a 100-horsepower 1.2-liter turbocharged three-cylinder engine paired with a 28-horsepower electric motor that’s set inside a dual-clutch transmission. While it’s on the mild end of hybrid powertrains, it can still trundle along on electric power for about six-tenths of a mile at a time at steady city speeds, and it lets the Grande Panda creep through rush hour stop-and-go traffic or park on electric power alone. Even though fuel economy figures haven’t been released yet, it sounds like the sort of setup that could serve a benefit in situations where a combustion engine alone is at its least efficient, without costing an arm and a leg. As a bonus, using an electric motor for low-speed maneuvers sounds like it could save wear on the DCT clutches. Smart stuff.
Now, if you’re looking for electric power, you can also get the Grande Panda with a 44 kWh battery and a 113-horsepower electric motor. Sensible stuff for an entry-level crossover. Fiat claims a zero-to-62 mph time of 11 seconds which is right in the ballpark of the Nissan Kicks and Honda HR-V, although the downside of a 44 kWh battery pack is a WLTP range of just 198 miles. However, it also has one particularly cool trait — an additional built-in retractable AC charging cord in the nose, supplementing the traditional AC charging and DC fast charging facilities out back. Nifty.
By now, you’re probably wondering what all this costs. Well, the hybrid version starts at less than €19,000, and the electric version starts at €25,000. At current conversion rates, that’s less than $19,900 for the hybrid and just over $26,000 for the EV, which is suitably affordable. It’s no secret that Fiat could use a U.S.-market car with more mass appeal than the 500e, so why not bring the Grande Panda over? Not only is it a small front-wheel-drive crossover, a competitor in a segment with fairly strong sales precedent, it also looks appealing. With lots of automakers looking toward bigger cars, maybe now’s the time America embraced small Italian cars. Come on, Stellantis. You know you want to send this thing stateside.
(Photo credits: Fiat)
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Unlike others, I think the only way this would sell here would be as a CDJR product.
Fiat has never had success here, and while this is nearly the perfect idea of a small Italian car to sell over here, how many “Fix It Again Tony” remarks will be made before they discontinue it with abysmal sales numbers?
Agreed. The Jeep Renegade sold about an order of magnitude better than the Fiat 500X in the USA. End the Fiat dealership experiment in the US, and if particular Fiat models make sense to import, just slap a Jeep or Dodge or Chrysler badge on them. The normies won’t be scared off by the Fiat badge and the enthusiasts can have fun rebadging a la the Holden/Chevy SS.
This is one of my favorite current cars. I would buy one immediately if it came to the US, assuming it was actually badged as a Fiat Panda.
But, if it does come here it’ll be badged as Dodge or Jeep, be called, like, the Grand Wizard or something, and you’ll need to sign the mandatory “Badassador” paperwork, and get your picture taken with the Vin Diesel cardboard cutout they have on the showroom.
Hmm. Tying a car to the KKK might actually boost Stellantis’ sales.
Kung Fu Panda might work.
I don’t really like it. There’s a real Panda, that’s smaller (a small car that’s small? – that’s weird) and 3-4000 euros cheaper.
And if someone does need a bigger car, Fiat has a diesel Tipo sedan for still a bit less than a Grande Panda. OK, it’s a sedan. (Why? Is that what they buy in Turkey, so that’s the one being kept in production?) But to me it still looks like a better deal: a diesel engine that I have not heard much bad about, with a manual transmission, vs. a mild-hybrid, with a chinese DCT and a freshly reengineered (for example, timing chain instead of a wet belt, but we first have to see, how durable that chain will be) engine.
And I think in the US something bigger, like the C3 Aircross (I’m talking about its size, not the design), built on the same cheap platform, would have a better chance.
My son rented one of those in France and LOVED it. More than 20 years before that, we saw tons of Citroen Picassos when we were there and really wished it was available here in the States.
This is already questionably small and incapable for the US market. Make it smaller or a sedan and it loses access to most of the buyer pool.
Add in a diesel powerplant and you’ve just turned away even more potential buyers, especially after it becomes more expensive with US emissions equipment.
Stellantis needs a quick success. They shouldn’t be shooting for niche segments that may or may not even exist in the US.
All of those are true, I should have said that my first comment was about markets where the Grande Panda is available now, or will be in a few weeks (=Europe, mostly).
Polarizing styling and 0-60 in 11 seconds while getting sub 200 miles of range from a brand known for nothing but bad reliability does sound like a winner for the US market, absolutely.
0-60 in 11 seconds for an EV is glaaaciaaal, which is surprising since 113hp isn’t that low. 200mi of WLTP range would be uncompetitive for the US (especially given that aero), but the hybrid might do decently if they reskin it into a Jeep (it’s too slow to be a Dodge).
I’m confused by Stellantis’s obsession with using ultra-tiny turbo’d engines in cars with big enough hoods. Why use a 1.2T to make 100hp when it can be done with an N/A 1.5L with a high compression ratio, like seemingly every Chinese automaker has done to get mid-40s% thermal efficiency?
Maybe those Chinese TE numbers are like their EV range numbers, wildly optimistic. Even Toyota only manages 41% in the current Prius:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Dynamic_Force_engine#M20A-FXS
Someone wrote in an article as a side note, that those chinese engines are not exactly the same as the ones in serial production. For example they don’t have to adhere to emission regulations.
Well there ya go!
The Dynamic Force engines were engineered in the mid-10s, while these Chinese engines have the advantage of being over a half decade newer. Additionally, they’re optimized for series-hybrid EREV applications (Toyota’s parallel-hybrid varies the RPM a lot), so they can optimize for a narrow RPM range. A spot-check I did a while ago showed that the non-hybrid versions of the Chinese engines seem to be in the same ballpark for fuel efficiency as Toyota’s when on the same optimistic CLTC cycle. So at the very least, they’re matching Toyota’s 40% TE in full ICE cars, assuming they have a similar transmission and aero efficiency.
Toyota and Mazda invested early in the high-CR N/A engine strategy that several have copied, and they don’t seem to have iterated much and instead spent their resources on making turbo-4s and 6s for a less FE sensitive product mix, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some Chinese automakers surpassed them years later.
How about Xx Yy Zz’s point about emissions? Are these engines dirtier than Toyotas?
The fuel economy numbers were done with production vehicles, so they should all be following China 6a emissions, which is similar to Euro 6 except for stricter particulate matter numbers; they even use the same WLTP cycle while testing for emissions only. However those TE% claims could totally be from a non-emissions compliant prototype, as I’ve not seen anything asserting the contrary. I’d assume that the hardware is the same as production, but spark & valve timing and EGR volumes are different.
I wish Toyota made EREVs so we could get a real world FE comparison :/
I wish Toyota made EREVs so we could get a real world FE comparison
Wouldn’t that be amazing? I’d like to see those run on CNG too.
It’s not just Stellantis, look at the Buick Envista, Chevy Trax and trailblazer. They could fit real engines in them, but they are all a three pot. It’s not about what fits, it’s about what gets the lowest emissions at this point. The excess space is there because it’s needed for crumple zones and “safety”
Cost is the #1 priority in those cars. They are designed to hit a price point, and they do it remarkably well IMO. But stick a “real” engine in them and the cost goes up. (And it would also cannibalize sales of other GM cars.)
Here’s the problem – they’d bring it over as a Dodge.
It would take three years to Dodge-ify it and the end result would have to cross the Atlantic twice during building it, resulting in something nobody’s really looking for sold for 15% more than the best-sellers in the segment.
Their dealers are already branded FIAT dealers. Just American-ize it and sell it as a FIAT. No entry level buyers for the car have a negative impression of FIAT, which may make it as valuable as the Dodge brand for selling a car like this.
I would love to see the Badassadors trying to flog this to the Dodge clientele.
This type of wheel design needs to die. Kia is particularly fond of it on their electrics.
Not at all. has a great 80’s MR2 / Tercel SR5 Wagon flavour to it.
What actually needs to happen is for city planners to standardize on a curb design that angles away from the street. Then I could have any wheel I want.
FIAT is an all-but-dead brand in the US. Just do the same thing they did with the 500L when nobody was buying it. Slap a 7-slot grille on it and call it the next-gen Jeep Renegade.
That’s what they did with the previous version. I’m sure there’s room for both here.
I have been openly hoping and praying for Fiat to bring the Panda to the US for well over a decade now, and if there’s one thing I know about Fiat (or more accurately, Stellantis) it’s that they’ll find every possible way to completely ignore American pleas to bring us the good Fiats. That’s not saying the new 500e is bad, I refuse to ever say any Fiat is bad, but it’s not what works for most Americans. The Grande Panda would be fantastic here, but I have zero hope of it happening.
When my wife and I went to Italy in 2018, there were Pandas everywhere. She loved them. We would probably have one if we lived there.
I was just reading a bikepacker blogging about riding around Sardinia, and he said old Fiat Panda 4×4’s are the default vehicle on the island. They’re just everywhere.
I livid in Torino 12 years ago. One morning there was a record lineup of 9 Pandas of different generations in a row in my street. I’ve never seen such conformity of a single car model.
Any Fiat is bad. Every Fiat is bad.
Go away.
To each their own, but I’ve owned multiple spectacularly good Fiats.
Goblins don’t have a good reputation either to be fair.
They’ve never put a big enough engine in the Panda to make it US-viable; several of engine choices are *two-cylinders*, including the most powerful petrol option, a turbocharged 0.88L making 69hp. The most powerful engine is a huge 1.25L diesel I4 making 95hp. I suspect that most of their other products are in a similar situation.
That’s why I bought a Renegade. I figured it was the closest thing I was ever going to get.
We rented a 2nd Gen Turbodiesel Fiat Croma wagon for a week in Italy and it was awesome. It had a 6M transmission, metric tons of torque and was a joy to drive. Our friends rented a gas Panda, but I have no idea which engine it had. We had to put most of their luggage in the back of the Croma because it didn’t fit in the Panda.
We paid more for the rental but far less for fuel than they did. We had to slow down on inclines to keep them in sight and had to stop for them to re-fuel while we still had more than half a tank. In the end, the economics were probably a wash, but we got to explore the country in a much nicer car.
I (American) had a 500L, and it is my favorite car that I have ever owned. They put the 1.4t (FIRE) engine in that car for North America, and it was great. They could use that engine’s replacement (GSE) in a theoretical North America-spec Grande Panda.
I do have to laugh at all the people in the comments who are insisting that no car like this could ever work here, when the Hyundai Venue already exists here and strongly resembles this car.
The problem is, it’s a Fiat. Or rather, the problem is Americans have hated Fiat since roughly the mid-70s and that hatred has been passed down through the generations. Basically, any Italian that isn’t a supercar will be the subject of intense vehicular prejudice because somebody’s dad/grandpa hated them back when he also hated disco.
Looks like about the size of a Kia Soul, and those seem to sell just fine. If it meets crash test…slap a Chrysler badge on it and sell it here! The lack of product is going to kill them otherwise.
Did FIAT hire someone from Hyundai to do the styling?
OR did they just cut and paste?
I came here to say the exact thing.
The pixels yes, and most notably, the headlights. They are so close the the Santa Fe H, which is way recognizable and until now, unique.
Hatchback really is just a dirty word now, huh?
Indeed. I don’t get the point of pretentions of off-road butchness in a FWD hatchback. Lifting a vehicle has never done a single good thing for on-road performance OR economy. One reason I like and respect the Soul as much as I do – a car with *zero* pretense. It’s a hatch with an upright seating position but normal ride height and no delusions of being butch.
This is a car for insecure stupid people.
To be honest the original Panda from the 1980’s and the the three Gens before this one all have been CUV style tall hatchbacks with the first three versions even having well reviewed 4WD / AWD versions. So, I think in this case its waranted
The early jacked-up versions were 4wd, and actually useful off-road. But they were never faux-butch. The ordinary FWD version was just a practical square hatch, and not even particularly tall. Certainly not lifted and slathered in black plastic nonsense. It was an Italian VW Polo. Later ones were Italian KIA Souls.
Yes, Agree. I mentioned the 4wd versions being actually a good off road small car.. with some versions especially the last two gens having plastic clad and slightly lifted versions.
It would be good to have a version without the cladding and 4wd but if you have ever lived in a European City you will know how practical it is to have black cladding as the street parking can be vicious. Also and sadly marketing needs cladding.
I always thought of them as very utilitarian compared to other cars like the VW Polo and more in the style of Renault 4 or 2CV lineage.
In Europe, for city cars you don’t need cladding, you just need plain black bumpers that can actually be used as actual bumpers for full-contact parallel parking. Those are functional. 99% of the cladding on this sort of thing is just fragile plastic that is going to just shatter if you nudge it wrong.
In think in the context of it’s native environment there is very little in it between a Polo and a Panda. It’s simpler and more utilitarian because Italians are rather poorer then Germans, but it’s the same market niche in each country. I like them both, I wish we could get such things here. They manage to be cheap and cheerful, whereas cheap cars here are too often just dire and completely lacking in any sort of fun or flair or style. The Italians are fundamentally incapable of making dull cars. Even something as lowly as a Fiat 126bis is a laugh riot to drive in a way that a Mirage just isn’t.
I’m not a massive fan of black cladding beyond bumpers and side strips myself but I think if anyone is allowed to get away with it (and no doubt it helps sell cars) it should be FIAT as unlike the Polo (and its 2wd Polo cross SUV version) the Panda it has been available with a 4wd system that from my time living in Italys mountainous north was used by everyone from Farmers to local Police.
Agree with what you say about at least the Italians giving the cars some character. I wish more manufacturers would do that.
I ordered a Fiat Grande Panda at Starbucks. It was alright, but overpriced.
Was it burnt? I’d expect it to be burnt.
“I ordered…at Starbucks”
Confirms: will be burnt. And expensive for the privilege of drinking ruined coffee with some weird Jazz vocal scat background music (there’s a reason it’s called scat…)
If you’re doing interesting side treatments bring back the Citroën C4 Cactus’ built in soft cushions.
Would sell better than anything else Fiat has here, but the best thing to do for stellantis would be to slap a Jeep grill on it and plug the big hole left by the Renegade ( and the Compass cause it costs waaay more than it used too).
I had the same thought. Hopefully they will do that.
There is definitely a market for this in the US, if only the Fiat name weren’t Kryptonite. I’m not sure marketing it as a Dodge is much better, but Stellantis is in dire need of a hit here. Why not resurrect the Neon nameplate and sell them as Dodge and Chryslers? They should bring Belvedere assembly back online and crank these things out like pez.
Ha, similar though as mine, yours is probably better suited though cause it’s FWD only. Also, I love a highland green Miata. That is mine.
Neon would be a great name so long as they keep all the color options.
Nice. Isn’t the Renegade basically a panda?
Renegade was based on the Fiat 500X. Explains why our Renegade occasionally switches over to Italian for no reason.
Itsa me! The Fieep!
This could work, but it is a good bit smaller than an HR-V or Kicks as mentioned, even their predecessors. It’s about the same dimensions as a Hyundai Venue. So, not quite near the more volume of crossovers. It’d be great for trying to skirt the cutesy image the 500 set for them, but for a company that needs product in showrooms, I don’t think it would be more than a novelty for now. Between this and the similarly sized Jeep Avenger, the Jeep makes more sense for filling showrooms, with an established brand and just more showrooms period.
Where’s the version that runs on bamboo?
Wake up! The new Jeep Renegade dropped!
Seafoam Green, steel wheels, regular door handles? Sounds like a dream come true! Will probably never come to the US though.
That may be the finest bit of interior design I’ve seen in quite some time.
Agreed this would make a fine economy model for Dodge or Jeep.
So if I’m reading this correctly, we’re looking at the new Jeep Patriot S.
I like it. They should sell a Jeep variant. Maybe give it a rebellious name as well.
They need to sell both the Grande Panda and the regular Panda here.
Dodge Panda.
Dodge Extreme Panda!
Everything Dodge is doing is so Poochie (of the Simpsons variety), unintentionally bringing us late ’90s retro.
What’s happenin’ Mr and Mrs S?!
Oh, hi Roy.
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not so Xtreme and 10 being Xtremely Xtreme I give this a 9.5
Dodge Polara Panda Express!
Dodge Panda Hellbear Yaoguai Edition.
Ram Panda (Panda with big ole devil looking Ram Horns)
Idk why but Ram Panda makes me laugh