Living with a… Fiat Grande Panda (Month 1)
The Grande Panda looks fantastic, but what's it really like to live with? – We find out
Words by: Erin Baker
Last updated on 23 October 2026 | 0 min read
What is it?
- Model: Fiat Grande Panda
- Version: Hybrid
- Spec level: La Prima
- Options fitted: winter pack (heated wipers, steering wheel and seats - £650); Lago Blue paint
- Price as tested: £22,645
Who’s testing it?
We like
We don’t like
Month 1 – Love at first sight
Erin says: "There’s a good, old-school, three-cylinder, 1.2-litre little engine. This is proper 80s small-car vibes"
How much has it cost you?
Well, I’m getting about 430 miles from a tank, and it’s doing about 55mpg. There’s a good, old-school, three-cylinder, 1.2-litre little engine. This is proper 80s small-car vibes. It’s called a Hybrid but there is no plug – the battery just boosts the petrol engine.
Where have you been?
We’ve been around the M25 in it, from East Sussex to Essex and back. It might resemble an 80s Panda in spirit, but thankfully it has a hell of a lot more pulling power than a 40-year-old three-cylinder car. We cruised along in fifth gear at 70mph three-up very happily.
What have you been carrying?
Lots of supermarket shopping and the boot, although relatively small, is surprisingly deep which is very handy because it stops all your shopping slip-sliding about. I’ve also had two 16-year-old teenagers, with their ridiculously long legs, in the rear seats and there’s a good amount of room for everyone.
Delights?
The diddy little plastic Panda car sketched at an angle in to the dashboard’s plastic frame, like it’s pootling up the screen for an outing. Also, the nonsensical writing on the seats: “Panda made with love in Fiat”. No idea what it means, but so Euro-brilliant. Also: loving an actual key in an actual key slot to start the car. That’s nostalgia right there.
Frustrations?
I could have happily taken a crusher to the car when it did an emergency stop at 40mph this week, as I drove past some parked cars on the left which it thought I was driving in to. Goodness knows how the van behind me didn’t massively rear-end me; instead, we just kissed bumpers. That didn’t stop the driver getting out of his van and telling me in words of one syllable what he thought of me. My kids in the back loved the entire experience: it was a joy for us all to have minor heart attacks, stiff necks and learn some new Anglo-Saxon banter. I tried to then deactivate the forward collision response as we drove off but it was unavailable – I will try to do it stationary in my driveway every time before I set off in future: I cannot go through that again.
Month in a nutshell
Loving every second of it apart from the stupid, stupid driver “safety” systems which are anything but.
Month 2 – Guess I picked the wrong week to give up on electric
Erin says: “The fuel gauge goes down at a worrying pace, but that’s not to do with its efficiency”
How much has it cost you?
This is just my luck…. I run electric cars for years, enjoying the cheap home charging while dealing with the frustration of public charging until, one day, I decide I’ve had enough of pure electric cars and would like to test something with an engine for a while. I duly get a Grande Panda hybrid (not a plug-in) and what happens? Trump keeps bombing Iran and petrol heads towards £2 per litre at the pump. Now I stare at it every day and think, can I afford to even take it to the shops this morning? The fuel gauge goes down at a worrying pace, but that’s not to do with its efficiency – I’m getting well above 50mpg. It’s simply because it has a small fuel tank. Even so, I feel like I’ve constantly only got 100 miles left before the next ruinous visit to a filling station
Where have you been?
I generally save the Panda for all my local trips, partly because it’s a bit noisy and basic for longer motorway trips and I have an Omoda 7 plug-in hybrid for those but more for the reason it’s such a stress-free car to park. I drive smugly round Tunbridge Wells, looking for all those spaces that the SUV drivers wouldn’t even dream of trying to squeeze into. I also do the school run in it and, as my sons go to school 25 miles away, it’s a 1.5-hour round trip, albeit on country roads. Dodging cows and sheep is as exciting as it gets.
What have you been carrying?
The boot is surprisingly deep. Everyone my age comments on how much bigger this Panda is than the one we all remember from the 80s, but would we really want to go back to a car that size? I can fit so much shopping in the boot, and the boys can put guitars in their cases on top of their sports bags in there. It still feels like a car with a small footprint. It just sits higher on the road and feels chunkier.
Delights?
It makes me smile. And everyone else, it seems. The exterior and interior styling are so, so distinctive compared with the generic Chinese SUVs now flooding the market. Am particularly loving the embossed PANDA on the door panels which catch the light at night, and the same in the chunky black plastic on the bootlid. Plus, of course, that curved bamboo glove box in the dash. Everyone loves that. It looks cool but it’s also deep enough to hold lots of stuff.
Frustrations?
I am starting to seriously hate the Fiat gear selector, as also seen on other cars in the Stellantis family like Vauxhalls and Peugeots. Sometimes it slides effortlessly from Drive to Reverse and back again. Sometimes it stops stubbornly in Neutral and requires a double shift. And you never know which, until you’re in the middle of a hurried three-point turn in the middle of the road with oncoming traffic. Fun.
This month in a nutshell
Thinking maybe I should have got the electric one after all…
