The reason I love the Panda - and any Fiat really - is because they’re efficient, small and cheap to buy cars that happen to be cheap to run and easy to fix. But on top of that, despite the low cost they make extremely rational and functional designs. Certainly cars like the Panda from the first model were designed solely with practicality in mind! They don’t seem to fall apart very easily, there’s no creaking plastic in sight (on my ‘05 anyway). They don’t make stupid designs like Vauxhall did on the 2006 Corsa or Citroen do on most of their models that make basic repairs a PITA. They take scratches, dents and abuse so so well and they don’t keep their owners up at night worrying about resale value, debts, the cost of fuel, how they’ll park it at the side of a busy street or dents and scratches. They don’t look like the design was aspired from yet-another-aggressive-looking car. And their focus is completely in different areas... I mean, a 4x4 city car? Turns out.. that’s a damn good and commercially successful model. Who else does that? And bringing back an iconic car like the 500.. sure, lot’s of companies do that: the Beetle, the Mini, the Mustang... But those are ridiculous, overpriced and oversized cars that, let’s face it, housewives and spoilt girls in their 20s get despite the countless design flaws and blatant sense of ‘you got nothing for your money’ that oozes from the very sight of those cars. At least the 500 is practical, efficient and easy to run. It’s an actual successor of it’s original ancestor car.
Fair play to Fiat, with the Tipo and Argo if that helps on the balance sheet, but it’d be a shame if we ended up with a complete range of bland, German inspired cars.. But with the Panda already out selling the VW Balls Up! I hope someone there sees the potential in the unusual and very Italian styled models like the current Panda and keep em coming for years yet. Speech done lol
