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About Panda

The Panda is Fiat at its most honest. The original, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and launched in 1980, was a flat-glassed, canvas-seated box that was cheap to build, easy to fix and impossible to kill; the four-wheel-drive version became a cult car in the Alps. A second generation in 2003 won European Car of the Year, and the third, launched in 2011 and built at Pomigliano d'Arco near Naples, has been a fixture on Italian sales charts for more than a decade.

That third-generation car has been kept on sale and rebadged the Pandina, with a mild-hybrid engine and updated equipment, while the name moved to a new model, the Grande Panda. Launched in 2025 on the same Stellantis platform as the Citroen C3, the Grande Panda is bigger, offered with hybrid and fully electric powertrains, and styled with deliberate nods to the 1980 original, down to the PANDA lettering pressed into its doors. Critics have welcomed its charm and value, with some grumbles about cabin plastics and quirky details.

In Italy the old Pandina still outsells its bigger sibling, a testament to its price and familiarity, while the Grande Panda carries Fiat's hopes across Europe against the Dacia Sandero, Renault Clio, Citroen C3, Toyota Yaris and cheap Chinese EVs. News here covers both cars: reviews and long-term tests, pricing, sales results, fleet deals, recalls, the electric version's range and charging, and the occasional oddity that only a Panda could get into. Few small cars have been loved for so long by so many people who never thought of themselves as car enthusiasts.