GTP Cool Wall: 2012(+?) Fiat Panda 4x4 TwinAir Turbo

[homeforsummer]

Cool.

Italy is as good at making small cars as it is at making supercars. It just "gets" them. It has also, in the Panda 4x4, made a vehicle with off-road capabilities less likely than any other 4x4 to make someone think "tosser" as you drive it through town. Would also look good outside the Parisian or Milanese cafe I mentioned in the Sonic thread.

Here's the previous one being a "crap" off-roader for the luddite brigade to seethe over:

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Also, note how fat bloke fits in the previous, smaller Panda with no difficulties. Once again demonstrating how many people here leap to daft conclusions without knowing a single thing about the car they're discussing.

 

[Bopop4]

You could take a Forester through that terrain...

 

[homeforsummer]

You could take a Forester through that terrain...

Your point being? Because I read that as "you could take a small Italian city car with a tiny engine through the same terrain as a Subaru Forester". Which doesn't sound too bad to me.

 

[Bopop4]

Your point being? Because I read that as "you could take a small Italian city car with a tiny engine through the same terrain as a Subaru Forester". Which doesn't sound too bad to me.

Whoops, I meant the Outback. (Was going to saw a WRX but I don't know if it would have the ground clearance for some of the steeper obstacles.)

Basically anything 4wd with a little bit of clearance can do that pit, but I'm doubtful it could get through something like a good snowfall. Which is a decent goal because not too many people run truly off-road.

 

[Wolfe]

I had a <60hp 1980s Renault for a short time; it managed the Chicago interstate system around rush hour like any normal car, and once broke 100mph. This week we've been crawling over rutted access trails and through muddy farmyards in my boss's FWD Dodge minivan for work. Anyone who thinks this Panda is impossibly or dangerously slow, or would get stuck offroad in a heartbeat, is just reading complete nonsense out of the spec sheet and needs to get out of the house more and actually, you know, drive stuff. Anything.

An ordinary damn car with a mild-mannered engine can do a damn lot. This car has the advantage of turning all four wheels (at times), and is more than potent enough to hit 60mph faster than the average commuter ever dares to drive. Are there trucks and things that can do more? Are there cars that are faster? Naturally, but that's no excuse to fool yourself into believing we live in some hyperbolic Clarkson-ized fantasyland where anything that fails to meet a certain quota of speed or prowess is a helpless turd by default.

 

[homeforsummer]

Basically anything 4wd with a little bit of clearance can do that pit, but I'm doubtful it could get through something like a good snowfall. Which is a decent goal because not too many people run truly off-road.

I agree, but I think you're probably underestimating the car. It's a small, light car with relatively narrow tires and all-wheel drive. Those are all pretty good characteristics for what you might call "light" off-roading. There seem to be several vids on youtube of Panda 4x4s tackling reasonably deep snow too.

Okay, it probably wouldn't forge through stuff a couple of feet deep, but then I hope nobody on GTP is silly enough to declare a ~50 mpg city car useless because it can't off-road as well as a truck.

 

[Famine]

After the apocalypse, there will be GM products and Jeeps.

Somehow I doubt this thing stands as much of a chance.

 

[Bopop4]

I agree, but I think you're probably underestimating the car. It's a small, light car with relatively narrow tires and all-wheel drive. Those are all pretty good characteristics for what you might call "light" off-roading. There seem to be several vids on youtube of Panda 4x4s tackling reasonably deep snow too.

I'm not underestimating the car.

My original point was reinforcing the idea that it's slow, and then it turned to how most suvs and 4wd wagons could make it up that pit.

Of course a 4wd is going to be capable, but the partial 4wd hurts it. Like a CR-V, would be a decent car offroad if it wasn't for the unwillingness to engage the rear wheels.

I would actually want to own one, gas mileage is great, and I could fit most of my important stuff in it.

 

[niky]

Deep snow or mud are less of an issue for small cars.

Less weight. Less sinking.

The Panda lacks the articulation of a Suzuki SJ, but it shares the lightness and small size. Lightness rocks off-road. I've driven some truly treacherous terrain, and have gotten stuck a number of times.

But never in an SJ. You have to be an absolute idiot to get one stuck. Any obstacles too deep for a car that small can be skirted. Light cars can ride the edges of ruts left behind by bigger vehicles. Ruts which those bigger cars can't straddle because the mud caves in under them.

TL/DR? Don't knock small off-roaders until you've actually taken them off-road.

 

[Roger the Horse]

 

[Famine]

The next response to that video will be "It's got nothing on [lifted, modified American truck]" followed by a list of gradients and axle articulations that a lifted, modified American truck can manage.

Because no-one's ever thought to lift or modify a FIAT Panda - and Steyr Puch know chuff all about all-terrain driving.

 

[Bopop4]

Well it doesn't really.

A stock Ferd F-Teen series can go up 103 degree inclines, no way the gummy bear is going to be able to match that.

 

[axletramp]

This thread has just made me want a Panda 4x4.

Cool.

 

[DustDriver]

Should have clicked on cool instead of subzero, but oh well.

Very short overhang makes it easy to park/manoeuvre in tight spots, something which is a lot harder with big trucks.
And a small car doesn't need a beefy engine to get from A to B, only the right gearing.

A more exciting exterior look would make it subzero for sure. But maybe some 4x4 gimmicks can help there.

 

[Dennisch]

The next response to that video will be "It's got nothing on [lifted, modified American truck]" followed by a list of gradients and axle articulations that a lifted, modified American truck can manage.

Because no-one's ever thought to lift or modify a FIAT Panda - and Steyr Puch know chuff all about all-terrain driving.

Ahem.

 

[Badasp5.0]

I think its cool and I am a knuckle dragging V8 Mustang loving 'MERICAN. But than again I have a very low HP '96 Legacy AWD that I take offroading in the deserts and mountains of New Mexico every summer and has yet to get stuck. I would DD a Panda 4x4 no problem at all.

 

[Tornado]

There was a major problem. "Suzuki" was in front of name plate.

I don't think Fix It Again, Tony is much better all told. For the 500, people will buy it en masse as a discussion piece. Fiat knew this, because they started off the relaunch of the brand using that and variations of it.


For a more normal car? Ehh...

 

[Nicksfix]

Initially I was going to just bang the seriously uncool and say screw this thing just because :

<1 litre engine with less than 100hp.
Way to small for my personal liking.
Seriously had doubts about it's 4x4 / off roading capabilities.

But then, I started to think about this car a little deeper. Seeing as how I have no personal insight into this car, I decided to do a little bit of research on it. I have to honestly admit, I was surprised by what I read. Meaning that I pretty much have to rely on the opinions of those who have actual experience with this car.

Here are (2) fine articles / reviews that I found on it.

Article / review #1
Article / review #2

After reading these, I had a change of heart towards this car. I personally can't go as far as calling it sub-zero or a solid cool, but it is a low end to a mediocre cool.

 

[White & Nerdy]

I think this car's biggest fault as far as off-roading goes is that it appears to be a unibody design. For offroading, that's very, very bad.

Would also look good outside the Parisian or Milanese cafe I mentioned in the Sonic thread.

I can't think of many better definitions of "uncool". Of course, there would have to be exceptions for supercars and other such things that pretty much everyone knows are cool, but cars that are "trendy" enough to look good outside a fashionable cafe are otherwise uncool.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

^ No need for a double-post, Edit works fine.

Initially I was going to just bang the seriously uncool and say screw this thing...

*snip*

After reading these, I had a change of heart towards this car. I personally can't go as far as calling it sub-zero or a solid cool, but it is a low end to a mediocre cool.

I'm happy I get to say this twice within a few days: I wish logic were contagious 👍

 

[White & Nerdy]

I meant to edit the post, but I derped.

 

[Nessy]

I think this car's biggest fault as far as off-roading goes is that it appears to be a unibody design. For offroading, that's very, very bad.

It still seems a very capable off-roader, despite it being unibody... Unibody keeps it light, as opposed to using a heavy body-on-frame, which would hurt it in all other areas.

 

[White & Nerdy]

Seems like a good idea, until the car incurs damage. Body-on-frame vehicles are a lot easier to repair fully.

 

[Azure Flare]

Well... Don't crash it then.

 

[White & Nerdy]

In serious off-roading, it's almost an inevitability.

 

[homeforsummer]

I think this car's biggest fault as far as off-roading goes is that it appears to be a unibody design. For offroading, that's very, very bad.

It's not designed for rock crawling or climbing mountains. It's instead a city car with incredibly effective all-weather ability that people can (and do) use on farms, Italian hillsides and other lighter-needs off-road scenarios.

I can't think of many better definitions of "uncool". Of course, there would have to be exceptions for supercars and other such things that pretty much everyone knows are cool, but cars that are "trendy" enough to look good outside a fashionable cafe are otherwise uncool.

Well quite, because you're a luddite when it comes to style.

It's nothing to do with "trendy" anyway. Trendy implies fashion and therefore short-lived appeal. I'm talking the sort of cool that still makes something like a Citroen DS as appropriate for that cafe today as it was back in the 1950s. Something that wouldn't look out of place in places recognised internationally for style and taste.

I don't know what the French or Italian for the "C-word" is, but that's the word the people in the cafe would use if you pulled up outside in the "proper" 4x4s this Panda is being rated as "useless" against...

 

[Tornado]

I think this car's biggest fault as far as off-roading goes is that it appears to be a unibody design. For offroading, that's very, very bad.

The Jeep Cherokee was unibody.

 

[niky]

I think this car's biggest fault as far as off-roading goes is that it appears to be a unibody design. For offroading, that's very, very bad.

Of course it is. That's why all dedicated off-road buggies are ladder-frame instead of tube-frame... oh... wait.

A unibody on an off-roader that light is not that big a handicap. You need to put a lot of weight on a unibody to cause it to fail. Never mind that the Panda 4x4, like every showroom stock off-roader on the market that is not a Wrangler Rubicon, is not set up to do serious rock crawling.

I can't think of many better definitions of "uncool". Of course, there would have to be exceptions for supercars and other such things that pretty much everyone knows are cool, but cars that are "trendy" enough to look good outside a fashionable cafe are otherwise uncool.

Curb queen supercars are cool? Really?

 

[Clark]

This car doesn't try to be 'trendy', upmarket, luxurious or meant to take on the Dakar or a near vertical off road slope.

It's a mountain goat or donkey in car form, there's not much to go wrong, it'll will never let you down and get you through most conditions.

It's honest and function over form, that's cool in my eyes.

 

[White & Nerdy]

It's nothing to do with "trendy" anyway. Trendy implies fashion and therefore short-lived appeal. I'm talking the sort of cool that still makes something like a Citroen DS as appropriate for that cafe today as it was back in the 1950s. Something that wouldn't look out of place in places recognised internationally for style and taste.

I don't know what the French or Italian for the "C-word" is, but that's the word the people in the cafe would use if you pulled up outside in the "proper" 4x4s this Panda is being rated as "useless" against...

It's different kinds of style, then. I wouldn't call that Citroen particularly cool, either. Burger joints are cool, muscle cars are cool, these kinds of things just aren't.

Of course it is. That's why all dedicated off-road buggies are ladder-frame instead of tube-frame... oh... wait.

A unibody on an off-roader that light is not that big a handicap. You need to put a lot of weight on a unibody to cause it to fail. Never mind that the Panda 4x4, like every showroom stock off-roader on the market that is not a Wrangler Rubicon, is not set up to do serious rock crawling.

It has more to do with repairs. Unibodies are more vulnerable to frame damage - if you knock one very hard, you'll have to straighten the frame and it'll never be quite as rigid afterwards. A dedicated rock crawler will be built to take abuse without bending, but a production vehicle probably won't be.

Curb queen supercars are cool? Really?

A supercar doesn't have to be a curb queen.