Fiat Panda 4×4 | Shed of the Week

Another Shed of the Week first timer today in the shape of this Fiat Panda 4×4. While we’re on the subject of shape, this one is odder than usual as the smartphone operative seems to have selected a mode that horizontally squishes everything the camera sees. With a view to viewing Mrs Shed in a more positive light, Shed has been eagerly Googling spectacles that might do the same sort of thing.

The idea of adding 4×4 hardware to a titchy car might seem weird, but Fiat had been up to those tricks long before this one came along. There was a 48hp 965cc 4×4 version of the original Giugiaro-designed Panda. That car sold in huge numbers from 1980 to 2003, to whit nearly four and a half million. Giugiaro put its success down to its conceptual similarity to a pair of jeans, which he saw as ‘a simple, practical article of clothing without pretence’. He also reckoned the first Panda had the essential quality of a military design: light, rational and optimised for a specific purpose, like a helicopter. It’s not exactly the same but Shed does dimly remember spinning one of these 4x4s while negotiating the village’s only roundabout after an evening on Old Dirigible Ale that had started at lunchtime. This was in the pre-postmistress days so there was no other chopper-related action that he can recall.  

The gen-two Panda you’re furrowing your brows at here first hit the scene in 2003. A joint scribble by Bertone and Fiat’s in-house felt tip artists, it was a much more modern mini-MPV type of design. Thanks to its height and additional doorage, it was a lot more practical than its three.-door predecessor. The rear seat backs folded flat, albeit only onto fixed seat bases so you had a two-tier luggage space instead of a flatter (but shorter) one. Still, with the seats down you had over 850 litres to play with, and even with them up the 200-litre space was bigger than a Mini’s. 

The gen-two was heavier than the gen-one, not that surprising really when you realise that some of those first Pandas weighed as little as 715kg, but it was never remotely lardy, failing to broach the 1,000kg mark in any iteration. Like the first Panda, the new one was well attuned to the market. It sold like hot cakes. Just as well too, because Fiat was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy at the time.

This 2010 example is one of the last gen-two Pandas (the third generation came out in 2011) so it benefits from the 2009 revisions that improved the economy and emissions of the 1.2 engine, dropping it to 155g/km which on the UK VED tax table equates to £255 or thereabouts. Insurance is dirt cheap too, typically group 2. You might be able to find slightly cheaper gen-two 4x4s in the classifieds but most if not all of them will be older than our £1,695 shed and Shed thinks that not many of them will look as fresh as this two-owner car, or have a better service record. 

That last one would be a British thing. You can’t imagine the average Italian bothering to quite the same extent. They have always known, or hoped at least, that Pandas were built to be abused. The colour of our shed is described as beige, but if you drive it in the correct brick-on-throttle fashion there should be nothing beige about the experience. The ABS system was specially hopped up for the 4×4 to help minimise unwanted helicoptering. 

As numerous tests have demonstrated, the hiked-up Panda 4×4 was impressively dogged off the road. With rose-tinted specs set aside the lack of power from the single-cam, eight-valve 59hp/75lb ft 1.2 petrol version and the roly-poly drive engendered by the tall body did limit its usefulness on tarmac. It took the best part of 20 seconds to wheeze its way up to 60mph, eventually topping out at a shouty 90mph. The 2008-on Panda Cross was a better bet as it had the gutsier 75hp/100lb ft 1.3 MultiJet diesel motor but you’ll pay a lot more for one of them. The fun of this 1.2 will come from the low running costs and the high excitement of trying to keep the speed up.   

Our shed’s towbar is comically large for a car that could only tow 800kg braked or 400kg unbraked. Not sure why, but shortly after Shed showed the pics of the back end to the postmistress they both felt the need to slope off to the back of the cricket pavilion.