Save up to 15% with Adrian Flux insurance!

General Panda off sale

Currently reading:
General Panda off sale

Just look at the numbers in that article which compares the UK with the rest of Europe.
Here, only 5,000 Pandas sold since 2020, but 70,000 Fiat 500s.
But in Europe (where the current model is expected to remain on sale for years to come) the Panda significantly outsold Fiat and Abarth 500s hands down, with over 75,000 Pandas sold in the first six months of this year alone. Factory production is actually set to increase as this demand in Europe continues to grow.
Why don’t we like the Panda here - bigger than the 500, with 4 passenger doors and more boot space, and cheaper! Yet, tiny sales volumes. Style over function? Or just clever advertising? Last time I was in a Fiat dealer (four years ago!), the only cars in the showroom were all 500s - you’d think they didn’t make anything else.
 
Last edited:
Herts Hillhopper said:
Style over function?
Click to expand...
Is and always has been. Brand. You see them privately advertised with almost a forelock-tugging apology:

Basic but reliable & cheap to run
Ideal first/last car for city and shops
Easy to park

If you own one (or more) you either do so because:
a) it's all that was available and you'll save up for an Audi as soon as you can. Any Audi. You're letting the street down. Hang your head in shame.
b) it just makes sense
 
In Italy you can buy a brand new Panda for what converts across to £8,475… if they’d sell them that price here, no doubt they would be still hitting the big numbers. I love the Panda, but it’s not a £14,000 car new. Perhaps if it was a fully loaded 4x4 with skydome and auto gearbox and winter pack, but most of those aren’t even options anymore.

It’s a shame, I was looking forward to seeing the revised ‘Pandina’ on our roads
 
Every fiat dealer I've passed in the last 10 years has had a pile of 500s outside (10-20) 3 or 4 abarths and if you're lucky 1 panda.
It's so overpriced over the last few years I wonder how they sold any pandas at all sine 2020.
The 500 in my opinion is way inferior but every female I know wants one, my missus included. I made her have an abarth which she loved and that went 3 years ago but she still drools over abarths and nice 500s.
My local Motorvogue has 30 500s, 4 abarths and 1 panda at present.
 
AB100 said:
Is and always has been. Brand. You see them privately advertised with almost a forelock-tugging apology:

Basic but reliable & cheap to run
Ideal first/last car for city and shops
Easy to park

If you own one (or more) you either do so because:
a) it's all that was available and you'll save up for an Audi as soon as you can. Any Audi. You're letting the street down. Hang your head in shame.
b) it just makes sense
Click to expand...
Option b for us. why I bought a Skoda not an Audi as our "good" car - even though many of the cars in the street are "premium" models from a variety of manufacturers. Badge snobbery and "image" are not something that "worries" me and I love driving our 2010 Panda and will actually chose to drive it if it's a town journey.
 
Herts Hillhopper said:
Just look at the numbers in that article which compares the UK with the rest of Europe. Here, only 5,000 Pandas sold since 2020, but 70,000 Fiat 500s. But in Europe (where the current model is expected to remain on sale for years to come) the Panda significantly outsold Fiat and Abarth 500s hands down, with over 75,000 Pandas sold in the first six months of this year alone. Factory production is actually set to increase as this demand in Europe continues to grow. Why don’t we like the Panda here - bigger than the 500, with 4 passenger doors and more boot space, and cheaper! Yet, tiny sales volumes. Style over function? Or just clever advertising? Last time I was in a Fiat dealer (four years ago!), the only cars in the showroom were all 500s - you’d think they didn’t make anything else.
Click to expand...

Fiat haven't helped themselves. The salesman who sold me my Panda in 2020 has had an ever-growing waiting list for Pandas. Constantly pulling his hair out about it. He just couldn't get them. Meanwhile, his dealer group were sitting on hundreds of unsold electric 500s they couldn't give away. Crackers.
 
Only six for sale in Northern Ireland used right now... The local (now sole) Fiat dealer has zero in stock. Think they had a 2018 Pop in last year for around 6 months. I spoke quite seriously with them about trading my Avensis in for a brand new one. I did the usual, come up, chat about it, test drive, discuss the options.. get a few quotes. Then go away and wait... got the call from the dealer mid week asking how I felt about it. Said I was still interested but hoping something could be done about the price OR some sort of option / spec bump for the price. Nope. Nothing. Weren't willing to budge whatsoever. And I've often read on here that nobody ever pays the RRP price for a new one. We truly suffer from a lack of competition here, as in the mainland I'm sure you could do the same across 3-4 dealers until one pulls the finger out and cuts you an actual deal.

I can't tell if it's the franchise... the salesman in question, or Fiat itself to blame for this. The salesman blamed Fiat and said they are unable to source many decent used Pandas from the internal dealer auctions from Fiat but then again, they are notorious liars so hard to know.

The Panda is far too expensive as of the last 4-5 years in the UK. Funny, they didn't have that issue in 2015 selling new Pop's for £6,999 - I wonder why
 
I would have bought a new panda if they had a decent one for sale, non mhev, or electric. It's streets ahead of the 500 to drive and be in. Owned a panda since 1990 dreading the day I have to be without one. Mine is 10 years old now, fully serviced, garaged always and 50000 just passed. All the rubbish bits have been treated or painted at low mileage and look like new, axle sump etc, Even the original exhaust is still not rusty.
It's got a few battle scars on the bumpers from a pheasant and those uncaring people in car parks. But would I sell it definitely not.
Had audis, bmws, jags, mr2s, mx5s, 10 capris but still rather drive the panda.
 
The uk tend to buy cars more on style and manufactures have to cater specifically to our right had drive needs.

Of the cars sold in Europe versus the uk, I wonder how much of that 75k was just in Italy and other Eastern European places. If you are making LHD cars to sell in one country then you might as well keep selling them in all LHD countries even if figures are low in some of them.

But if you only sell 5k in a single country that specifically needs the car to be right hand drive, then the decision about continuing the model comes down to if the number of cars sold makes up for the cost of tooling and production line adaptations needed for the rhd cars.

The panda in its current form has very much had its day, the UK is considered to be a wealthy country compared to a lot of others in the EU so we’ll just get the new model.

Fiat did exactly the same thing with the mk2 Punto which they carried on making till 2012, but stopped selling in the uk in 2005/06. It’s worth carrying on making cheap cars for poorer countries but not making a specific rhd version of a cheap car with slim margins for what is essentially a wealthy country who can afford the newer model
 
GaryinAmsterdam said:
I like the Panda over the smaller 500 because it has more space inside and in the rear seat. I also feel like I sit more upright and higher in the Panda. Plus the four doors are great and I can carry so much more.
Click to expand...
Definitely, that little diagonal cut forming the classic back shape of the 500 makes a huge difference to practicality. Very noticeable parking them beside one another, wheel base and platform / length the same, but the Panda much bigger in usable space!

I used to volunteer for a local BHF charity shop here when I was a student, collecting donations of clothes / furniture from whoever wanted to donate them. A few times, I had the Panda filled to the brim with all sorts of random furniture / bags of donations - miracle I was never pulled over! haha Couldn't have done that in a 500
 
SB1500 said:
Definitely, that little diagonal cut forming the classic back shape of the 500 makes a huge difference to practicality. Very noticeable parking them beside one another, wheel base and platform / length the same, but the Panda much bigger in usable space!

I used to volunteer for a local BHF charity shop here when I was a student, collecting donations of clothes / furniture from whoever wanted to donate them. A few times, I had the Panda filled to the brim with all sorts of random furniture / bags of donations - miracle I was never pulled over! haha Couldn't have done that in a 500
Click to expand...
"had the Panda filled to the brim with all sorts of random furniture / bags of donations" - really? Nothing on the roof? Ours did most of the house move and is still working as a van.
Pandatruck.jpg
 
AB100 said:
"had the Panda filled to the brim with all sorts of random furniture / bags of donations" - really? Nothing on the roof? Ours did most of the house move and is still working as a van.
View attachment 451145
Click to expand...
Not on my roof, but I did have wood that same summer in the boot!

1724768521577.jpeg

Me and my girlfriend at the time made a little business selling things like this for the summer
1724768574850.jpeg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

nvrton
Technical Dashboard lights turned off
Replies
13
Views
192
nvrton
nvrton
G
General Panda woes
Replies
4
Views
251
Panda IIs
P
B
Off Topic Looking a favour
Replies
2
Views
302
Big gerry
B
P
General Back in a Panda...
Replies
4
Views
129
shera2025
S
J
Technical Panda Cross Cylinder Cover
Replies
1
Views
166
The Panda Nut
The Panda Nut
Back
Top