Impossibly Skinny Fiat Panda Build Leaves Us Uncomfortable, but Impressed

Thin Fiat Panda created by Andrea Marazzi

Pitstop_UK via YouTube

The impossibly slender Fiat Panda you see here was created by an Italian man named Andrea Marazzi, and he is a genius. There’s really no other word for someone able to dream up a contraption like this and actually render it as a working vehicle, with a fit and finish so high-quality that you’d almost wonder if Fiat itself built this thing for an art museum.

It took a year for Marazzi to slice up his 1993 Panda and put it back together again, missing about two-thirds of its width. A human can fit inside ot it, though keeping both elbows in seems like a challenge. There is even “seating” for a passenger behind the driver, so long as they’re comfortable sitting mostly on the wheel wells.

While it may look like a motorcycle, Marazzi’s masterpiece retains all four of the donor Panda’s wheels, which seems like another unbelievable feat until you remember how small and thin those first-gen Panda tires are. The paper-thin Panda only tops out at about 9 mph. That’s fine, because anything faster would be terrifying, and also pose a massive rollover risk. I mean, this makes a Reliant Robin seem resolutely stable.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by tutti pazzi per marazzi (@tutti_pazzi_per_marazzi)

The steering wheel looks as if it’s been pulled off a Cozy Coupe, and the whole thing is powered by a 24-volt DC electric motor, because why bother cramming a gas engine in there? This Panda is just 19.6 inches wide—about 38 inches less than an ordinary one. For that reason, only a single headlight is necessary, though it still has turn indicators on either side. And if you think the windshield is comical, get a look at the teardrop rear window.

Hat tip to Designboom for bringing Marazzi’s work to our attention. It seems he’s also rolling out a build diary series over on his Instagram page, Tutti Pazzi Per Marazzi (“Everyone’s Crazy About Marazzi” in Italian—great name); though we unfortunately won’t be able to follow along, because it’s not in English. Still, it’ll be handy to link to next time somebody discounts this perplexing Panda as the work of AI or Photoshop.

Got a tip? Email us at [email protected]

Adam Ismail Avatar

Adam Ismail

Senior Editor

Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.