Remember the Highlander movie from the ’80s? It was about a bunch of immortal people who live among us right here, on Earth, the only place in the known universe you can get chicken strips, and every now and then they meet up and try to cut off one another’s heads, because, according to their culture, there can be only one. Well, for some reason, that was the phrase I thought of when I saw that ad for the SEAT Panda Montaña, which made me think of Hanna Montana, because that’s how it sounds.
Before we go into this extremely tenuous link, allow me to show you the Highlander trailer, complete with Sean Connery as an ancient Egyptian who now lives in Spain but somehow just speaks exactly like Sean Connery:
Does this really have anything to do with the SEAT Panda Montaña and Hanna Montana? Not really, except for the how the similar-sounding names caused me to imagine a world where entities, car or teen sensation, that shared names that sounded strangely similar, felt compelled to fight to the death because there can be only one.
As I type this, I realize it’s inane. Oh well. Let’s talk about the Panda Montaña, which I came across via this wonderful tweet:
Unlike Fiat's Panda 4X4, SEAT's 'all-terrain' Panda Montaña of 1982 retained two-wheel-drive. It made do with modifications like guards for the lights, a sump protector, beefier tyres and a large roof rack to render it suitable for rural adventures. #carbrochure #SEAT pic.twitter.com/arFDgF51lt
— Car Brochure Addict (@addict_car) January 29, 2024
The SEAT Panda Montaña is an interesting little car!
That’s because it’s a license-built version of the Fiat Panda, a fantastic, utilitarian little car that Giorgetto Giugiaro nicknamed the “fridge” but in an affectionate way. He also said this of the Panda:
“The Panda is like a pair of jeans, that simple, practical, no frills piece of clothing. I tried to bring into this car the spirit of military machinery, especially helicopters, that means light, rational, built-for-purpose vehicles.”
Fantastic, right?
These also were one of the few cars that came in air- and liquid-cooled versions at the same period in time!
There was also the legendary 4×4 Panda, but that’s not what the car I’m talking about right now was based on, strangely. Yes, the Spanish-built SEAT version, in Panda Montaña form, was just the 2WD Panda, but outfitted with a tough-looking faceguard to protect the lights, chunky tires, an oil pan protector, and that great roof rack up there.
Honestly, I bet these things did okay off-road! It’s still light and nimble and has the weight over the drive wheels, so I would feel confident taking it in some rough stuff. I mean, look at it, all cool and filthy!
So, yeah, if there truly can be only one, and the Panda Montaña and Hanna Montana have to fight to the death, I think I know who I’m pulling for.
Besides, it’s okay to root for a car to kill a little girl if that girl is technically fictional, right?
Right?
Going to move to Montana with Hannah “the Banana” and raise me a crop of dental floss…and weed.
Never seen the Sean Connery movie but he was always great on the Trebek show.
Miss them both.
BTW Torch, thanks for such great content. I kid man but you and DT are the best.
I’m soooo confused. It’s all in plain English but NONE of this makes any sense.
It’s just like when I visit my mother in the memory care unit and the residents are talking around the dinner table.
Ah Highlander. Seven SEATs, but there can only be one person inside.
This is a woefully underrated comment
(bonus if the driver is wearing a Vineyard Vines shirt.. or am I thinking of Xterras?)
JT, just as Hanna Montana was a figment of imagination…
I was 100% expecting the “Panda Montaña” to be a figment of your prestigious imagination
Now I want one… a Panda Montaña that is, not a fictional Disney tween character
The Panda Montaña sounds like a scaled down Matra Rancho
As for the paradox, erase Hannah Montana and save me a SEAT
“These also were one of the few cars that came in air- and liquid-cooled versions at the same period in time!”
I’m pretty sure that one of the Brazilian Volkswagen models (Gol, maybe?) could be had with a front-mounted, Beetle remnant, air-cooled, flat-4 at the same time that model was sold with a water-cooled I-4.
Also the Brazilian Type 2 Bay Window, the air cooled and water cooled versions coexisted until 2006
Early Type 2 T3 was globally available with an air cooled boxer and the water cooled inline diesel before the wasserboxers came.
I‘d add the Citroën Visa, sporting either the aircooled 2CV Boxer or the Peugeot-sourced inline 4.
Seat also built a version called the Panda Bavaria: an Italian car built in Spain named after a German region and a Chinese animal.
If there can be only one then Tony would like you to “say hallo to his leetl fren”.
Highlander is awesome for the fact that they had a French guy starring as a Scotsman and a Scotsman starring as a Spaniard carrying a katana. Gotta love the 80s.
Then, of course, came the TV series that had a guy that looked like Sean Connery (kinda) playing a relative of the original Highlander, who wasn’t Sean Connery, and din’t look like him.
At that point, might as well have had naked Miley drop in on a wrecking ball. Because why not?
And also the sequel movie, which resurrected Connery’s character from the original and transported him into the future, retconning the immortals into being an advanced extraterrestrial humanoid species
There was no Highlander sequel!
Highlander II: The Quickening, released 1991, set in the far-off future of 2024
Let me rephrase, “I do not accept that piece of trash as a sequel to Highlander”!
They made some, interesting, choices
There Can ne only one !
The only movie I ever sneaked into without paying. Still felt cheated.
So, who’s responsible for fitting the Panda Montaña with a blonde wig once a Fiat Miley Cyrus drives over the Spanish border? Has anyone ever seen the Fiat and the Seat in the same place at once?
Why whoever is Driving the Panda Montana at the time you silly goose
Montaña is mountain in Spanish and Montana, the state, is an Anglicized version. Since Hanna Montana was named after the state, they are in fact the same thing. Now, if you placed Miley Cyrus in a Panda suit, she would be Panda Montaña and you would have a problem if there can be only one.
The logical solution would be to revert Hanna to her original alter-ego of Alexis Texas and dress her as an armadillo. Then, there can be two.
–
This is the way!
I think we just found Torch’s burner account because this sounds exactly like the kind of logic he used to come up with this article. 🙂
So I think like Torch? Should I be worried?
Only if you get the urge to inhale lead dust. 😉
Delightfully unhinged word association here. Torch 2.0 does not hold back, and I appreciate that.
I’m going to argue that, because Hannah Montana is a fictional character, the Panda can only exist in her reality, but not vice versa. In this case, it would be rational to assume that the Hannah Montana formula would be maintained, I feel like Hannah Montana has an advantage in this regard.
Unless the writers agreed to kill off Hannah Montana in a Jim Henson’s Dinosaurs-esque pollution apocalypse (the Panda Montana’s emissions being complicit), I cannot imagine the Panda Montana winning out. It’s more likely Hannah is gifted the Panda Montana, neglects maintenance, and when it dies she learns a lesson about how important it is to take care of your things.
I bet that little car gets really good Mileys per gallon.
Maybe Christopher Lambert drives a Toyota Highlander…
Ok, ok, I know we’re all just having fun talking about cars killing (fictitious) young girls, but let’s focus on what’s seriously wrong with your post, Torch: “Montana” does not equal “Mohn-tah-nya”, which is how it’s pronounced when that little squiggly thingy is over the n. So there’s absolutely no conflict between Hannah “Mawn-tan-uh” and the Panda “Mohn-tah-nya”. I think she’s safe.
However, I think Joe Mantegna might be in a little trouble…
This Montana/montaña pedantic take is the correct one and also the main reason I continue to visit this site.
Also, where does the GOAT Himself Joe Montana side in this discussion?
The squiggly thingy is called ‘virgulilla’ (birguli-jah). My wife found out that info while learning Spanish (it’s my mother tongue and I had no clue…). Our first cat is nicknamed ‘gatilla virgulilla’, because she has a spot shaped like one…
I pray for a car to kill several women on a daily basis. And they are real…so am I playing this game right Torch?
Mr. Torchinsky will be with you shortly, as he is currently consulting with the Autopian legal department for acceptable answers to your question.
To clarify. Women are the best thing God ever made. Bar none.
But with that comes the ability to be evil. I have been blessed to have only known a couple of those.
And evil people suck, no matter what team they play on.
No harm or insult directed here. Except to the evil ones.
MTG and Bobert, the vet called. You both are overdue for your distemper shots.
MTG and Bobert are not women. They are succubi. Run over them with a Panda all you want, but it won’t kill them. You will need an Olds Cutlass, Reliant Sabre, or Lamborghini Espada, with at least a +2 enchantment.
Don’t forget rabies shots. I hear Boebert’s a biter.
I have often wondered what kind of world we would be living in, if the women actually ran the show. Seriously.
Re: the biter. Thanks for a great laugh, much needed.
That was my first reaction. This seems like an alternate reality Cold Start. Wait a minute, now that I think of it almost all of them are.
Panda Montana sounds like a Spanish zoo attraction. Some people believe pandas aren’t real, just people in cute bear suits. Hannah Montana wasn’t real, just a role played by Miley Cyrus, who is also frequently seen in a cute bare suit.
Say hello to my little friend!!
I’m on team Hanna: in a later form she adds a wrecking-ball to her inventory.
Or a ball wrecker?
This debate is only valid with a kickass rockin’ Queen song
Queen ruled ’80s over the top scifi. Sam Jones would agree.
The Queen soundtrack to Flash Gordon is sublime. In addition to being legitimately some of their best work, it emphasizes the idea that you’re not supposed to take the whole thing seriously at all.
I watched the restored version on Netflix a few years back because I wanted to see how terrible it was, but also because I wanted to hear how Queen sounded when the whole thing was digitally cleaned up.
The answers: the movie was terrible in a fun way, and Queen sounded (and I would bold and italicise this if I could) fucking fantastic.
Side note: The New York Jets losing their star quarterback to an interplanetary battle with Ming the Merciless seens totally like something that would happen to the New York Jets.
I’ve always wanted to hear the full version of Freddie singing New York New York. We only hear a bit when the Kurgan is driving with Big Altima Energy in a Caddy.
There’s an AI version out there but apparently he only recorded that small part that we hear.
Chiquita Banana challenges Hannah Montana in a battle to the death for the prize of the Panda Montana.
What would happen if Hannah Montana drove the Panda Montana? Would that satisfy the ‘only one’ rule?
Hannah Montana would drive her Panda Montaña to Arby’s to buy a Big Montana in the state of Montana which triggers The Quickening.
I mourn the day that Arby’s stopped calling it the ‘Big Montana’ and just made it the insultingly boring ‘large roast beef’ instead.
Interestingly enough, even now when I order a Big Montana they know what I mean and I get the right sandwich. Perhaps the Resistance lives on…
NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!!! VIVA LA BIG MONTANA!
Big Montana has Arby’s sauce on it, large roast beef doesn’t. Super Montana has lettuce and tomato and sauce, Deluxe Montana is the same as the Super but swaps the sauce for Mayo. I worked there in high school and still get a Big Montana every once in a while.
Ha that reminds me Years ago (1990s) Poncheros (at least in IA) used to have a burrito called the “El Gordo” which was a ginormous 2 Pound burrito.
It was the same as the regular burrito with the exception that it was made with two giant toetias and had a layer of refried beans on the inside.
In the mid-ughts I tried to order an “el.gordo” I think at a MN location and they just stared at me.
Either the fantastic El Gordo was removed from the menu at all locations and understandably after a few years all employees forgot about it Or the then ‘current’ never knew about it given the rapid turnover at any fast food place
Or
It was a menu item that was a special item at a handful of IA Poncheros locations
As long as she doesn’t run into a Pontiac Montana, I think we’re fine
So you still had some leftover pain meds, eh Torch?
And are you willing top share them? (asking for a friend)
Not sure one could really tell a ‘high Torch post’ from a regular (not high) ‘Torch Post’
Don’t ever change
Somehow you’ve managed to evoke both Christopher Lambert and Miley Cyrus. It takes a mad, mad genius to pull off something like that Torch. There can be only one coming in like a wrecking ball…. especially if ain’t got the real 4×4 chops… just the looks.