Fiat is “going further” with the 4×4 version of its Grande Panda, revealed as a concept but confirmed for production with a hybrid drivetrain and a suite of ingenious accessories.
The regular Grande Panda’s design is inspired by the beloved and very boxy Panda 4×4 from the eighties, which posed a one-upmanship challenge for the design team.
“We had to go a bit further,” head of design Francois Leboine exclusively told Auto Express at Fiat’s design centre in Turin. “But we didn’t want to make it a caricature. We just wanted to [add] things to make it even cooler, the layer that was missing to finish the car as a 4×4. To say, ‘now I’m ready to go off-road’ – that was more or less the exercise.”
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The 4×4 is a fond part of the Panda’s heritage, with three iterations of the off-roader to date. But it hasn’t been a big-seller, Fiat’s head of Europe told us in Turin. “When we stopped the Panda 4×4, we had a revolution!” said Gaetano Thorel. “People saying: ‘You’re crazy, everybody is driving a 4×4. But when you look at the number, you realise that the 4×4 was [less than] 5 per cent of the mix!”
The Grande Pande is set to be the first four-wheel drive model based on Stellantis’ ‘smart car’ platform, which also underpins the Citroen C3 and Vauxhall Frontera, enhanced by an extra electric motor on the rear axle. Fiat says “[the electrified rear axle] feature would enable the Grande Panda 4×4 to deliver impressive performance in urban settings and on more demanding terrain.”
