Fiat Panda 4x4

Model/Engine size: 1.2 4x4
Fuel: Petrol
Fuel economy combined: 42.8 mpg

It’s winter. Despite global warming, it’s still cold and frosty. You live in the country and you’re fed up with your wheels spinning on icy hills. You decide that you want the reassurance of a car with four wheel drive, but you want something cheap and cheerful, and reasonably economical. What do you go for? The obvious choice is the Fiat Panda 4x4. But is it a good choice?

The Panda is the most economical 4x4 in our Green-Car-Guide petrol category. It returns 42.8mpg and emits 156g/km CO2. That may sound OK, but the three diesel 4x4s at the top of our list all return 43.5mpg, and are much bigger cars. And when you bear in mind that a Mini Cooper D can manage 72.4mpg, the Panda’s economy isn’t great. However it costs less than £10,000, so you can donate the money you save on buying the car in the first place to the fuel bills. Insurance costs will also be low, ensuring it’s a cheap car to run.

The other thing you need to know is that the Panda is incredibly slow. It takes 20 seconds – yes 20 seconds – to accelerate to 60mph. This makes overtaking anything that is faster than an old person on a pushbike a terrifying experience, and one where you take your life into your hands.

On the plus side, the Panda is small, light (under 1000Kg), and has fantastically short overhangs front and rear. So even with its rather wimpy 60bhp 1.2 litre engine and road-biased tyres, it can scamper across off-road challenges with more ability than you might imagine. To put this to the test, we set it the task of getting to the top of a well-used off-road route up to the top of a mountain in Wales.

The short overhangs helped the Panda considerably over the rocky route, however very careful positioning on tracks worn down by chunky Land Rover tyres was required due to its relatively low ground clearance. Despite a few touch and go moments the Panda made it to top of the hill, to the amazement of a group of Land Rover enthusiasts who were so proud that their Defenders with huge tractor tyres and snorkels had made it to the top – only to see a standard road-going Panda at the top of the hill waiting for them.

The exterior design looks a bit funky in an off-road sort of way – more so from the rear than the front - although it appears to have an exhaust pipe with the diameter of a pencil – this is never a good sign for the promise of exciting performance. And most off-roaders have big chunky truck-like door mirrors – the Panda has mirrors that are so small they would be more at home in a make-up bag.

The packaging of the Panda is good – there seems to be more space inside than you would expect from such a small car. The gearlever sits on the large centre console, which seems too bulky, as it gets in the way of your left leg while driving.

Build quality for a budget priced Fiat is reasonable, but equipment isn’t great and it has the weird Fiat button that you need to press on the dashboard to activate/deactivate the power steering for city use. A normal speed sensitive system would be a much more sensible solution.

Driving it is a slow affair, it’s certainly not the best choice for motorway miles with its 90mph maximum speed, and there’s lots of road noise at high speeds and especially if you’re not on smooth tarmac.

In conclusion, the Panda isn’t the most rewarding drive, but it’s a cheap and cheerful 4x4 with reasonable economy that offers the potential of fun in the great outdoors. But Fiat, please give us the 70bhp 1.3-litre turbodiesel that is available in other Pandas in the UK and the 4x4 in Europe, with its better torque, higher mpg and lower emissions.