The first time I drove an original Fiat Panda was on a five and a half hour trip through mountain roads. It was better than you can imagine.
This is a car I heard a lot about throughout the years. The Panda has become an icon around the world for its ruggedness and its incredible capacity to overcome most terrains amidst its small engine. I would argue that the Fiat Panda is viewed with higher regard and admiration than some Ferraris, most Maseratis, and Lamborghinis.

The three aforementioned brands made their mark around the world as some of the most significant car manufacturers ever. Everyone on this green earth can find an Italian car that suits their deepest desires, except for the working class. The Italians are so good at making beautiful things that their target audience naturally became the wealthy.

Fiat grabbed that open market with two hands by giving the Panda a base price of 6022€ in 1998, adjusted for inflation that’s a little over 8600€. That’s a hell of a lot cheaper than its Italian-made counterparts. Thanks to Fiat, the Italian people had a car that did it all, made specifically for the common Italian man and at a reasonable price. 

Fiat has made economy cars for a long time now, and they are quite good at it. The 500, the Punto and the Uno are some of the best-selling vehicles in Europe, but they were all front-wheel-drive and relatively low to the ground, making it difficult for farmers, hunters and so on, to drive on rugged terrain. The Panda stands out thanks to its 4×4 trim and higher ground clearance. 

This is the Fiat Panda Young. Besides the fact that this is the cheapest trim model, the Young is also one of the trims that did not have a 4×4 drivetrain but was instead front-wheel drive. Having not yet driven the 4×4 version I can’t tell you how different they feel. What I can tell you, however, is the weight saved from removing the 4×4 system has not improved the performance much. I reached a whopping top speed of 96km/h on the freeway and that’s as fast as I was comfortable doing. I was overtaken by one semi-truck, sandwiched between two others, and decided to take the first exit out of here onto a road with a lower speed limit.
Although, do not think the Fiat Panda is unbearable on the freeway. On the contrary, it’s quite capable. The only issue is that for today’s standards 45bhp is simply not enough to keep up with the flow of traffic without pushing the car’s limit. The mighty Panda has a claimed top speed of 130kph, but that’s probably going downhill with a strong wind coming from behind. So, driving on the freeway is possible but you need to be fully aware that you will be the slowest vehicle on the road, and sometimes, technically, you will be breaking the law because of how slow you’ll go. I think that in the 80s and 90s, 90kph to 100kph on the freeway would be a perfectly acceptable speed, so I can’t hold it against Fiat. It’s not a flaw, it’s a character trait.

Off the highway is where the Panda shines. To truly understand the quirkiness of the event, the engine doesn’t even need to be turned on. The continuous smile on my face started the second I laid eyes on the car. The boxy styling reminisces the old days, a time I did not live but could only imagine experiencing. The styling is part of the foundation of that car, it has a purpose, it needs to look that way for it is part of its structural integrity. The man who designed the Panda is Giorgetto Giugiaro, the legend who designed countless other iconic cars such as the BMW M1, the Lancia Delta, and the Delorian.

The door opens thanks to a little button where the key goes to unlock it. Unsurprisingly, it’s a very light door because it’s basically just a sheet of metal. The seats are L shaped, rectangular, very padded, and as comfortable as the seats in an old cinema. Mr Giugiaro said he was inspired by deck chairs to make the seats: Tubes on each side to make it structurally sound, canvas in tension and some padding, and called it a day. 

The steering wheel has a large radius and is angled upwards a bit, like a truck. I’m 187cm tall, and the car is obviously not designed for people my size. If I move the seat so that my legs are in a comfortable position, I’m lightyears away from the steering wheel, but if I get close enough to use the wheel correctly, I have to empale my knees in the bottom of the wheel. The solution was to find the sweet spot in between. My legs were spread out so that my knees were a couple of centimetres from the wheel but not against the shifter, and I’m close enough to just about reach the top of the steering wheel. It was a surprisingly comfortable place to sit for five hours, despite the weird seating position. 

The engine turned on, the journey can now begin. The clutch grabs early, and the small 1L 4-cylinder engine produces enough torque to pull the 750kg car very easily. It was a very intuitive shifting experience. The next thing I noticed was how effortless it was for the Panda to absorb potholes and bumps. The ride is absolutely stellar, way beyond my expectations. The skinny tires and overall proportions of the car led me to think the ride was going to be bumpy or, a the very least, bouncy. Quite the opposite, the Panda handles the notoriously aggressive French speed bumps with ease, better than our 2016 Seat Ibiza does. Not having power steering is weird at first, and tough on the arms, but the moment the car gets moving, it all gets a lot easier. Still, the steering is pretty heavy for such a light car, heavy enough to work out some previously unused muscles. I had both windows down because I had no AC, and the wind noise was not bad at all, the best I’ve experienced I think, even better than my old 190e.

I am going to express an idea I didn’t want to elaborate on at first because it’s a bit cliché. So here I go:
Cars are never going to be the way they were before, and driving this Fiat Panda was a reminder of that. So I must talk about it.
All the inputs I gave to the car, whether it was accelerating, braking, or turning, needed to be done in a manner that is considerably more meaningful than the ones I’d do in a newer car. Because there is no ABS, ESP, or Power Steering, the car can’t help you deal with the dangers of the open road. An older car needs to become an extension of your body for you to be able to control it properly and safely. Press too hard on the brake pedal and the wheels will lock up, and you’ll end up in a wall. This phenomenon adds intimacy to the relationship between you and the car. You have to be able to understand the vehicle, and sense where the car feels comfortable shifting for example. The Panda has no tachometer so you are obligated to rely on your senses. 

After five and half hours on the road, besides my harms being a little tired, I had no complaints about this car and the driving experience it delivered. 

At the wheel of this adorable Italian metal box, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I was now sharing the driving experience of hundreds of thousands of vignerons, farmers, hunters and more. Like Doctor Who’s TARDIS, the Fiat Panda teleported me through time and space to the late 90s in Italy, to the point where I caught myself speaking with an Italian accent while doing the stereotypical hand gestures. I drove over a beautiful bridge and I said out loud “Mama Mia, what-a wonderful-a bridge!”. I had the air flowing through my hair, my Ray-Bans on, and an arm out the window getting sunburned, I was living la dolce vita. Someone call James May because I think I figured it out; he was just driving the wrong Panda in his show.

If, in the 90s, the need for a small, reliable, cheap, go-every-where car ever arose, I’d absolutely get a Fiat Panda. And that’s exactly what most working-class Europeans felt. The Fiat Panda is one of the greatest cars the world has seen and is still to this day one of the best-selling cars in Europe. Its legacy lives on and hopefully will keep living on for some time to come. Because without cars like this one, Italy wouldn’t be what it is today. Vineyards wouldn’t function the way they did, so we wouldn’t have great Italian wine to drink, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Max.