The Fiat Panda is the best small car of the last generation – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

It’s not the Smart ForTwo because while clever and well-conceived, it was too narrowly defined and unevenly engineered, and while the Toyota iQ was actually a work of considerable genius, it was too expensive ever to be considered as a true car of the people.

Actually I think there’s a strong case for the Renault Twingo – the original that is, not either of its subsequent less worthy generations – for the simple clarity of its design. By using a one box shape design director Patrick Le Quément created a car that was at once characterful yet phenomenally functional too. And the only reason I’m not going to discuss it further here is that Renault regarded it as a niche model, never thought it would sell in huge numbers so never bothered to tool up for right-hand-drive. So much to its cost and eventual considerable regret, it was never sold in the UK.

In fact the car I’d choose is the Fiat Panda, and I’m writing about it now because it’s 40 years old this year. Just like the Audi quattro, though that and the availability of four-wheel-drive may be all they have in common.

The original Panda was everything a small Fiat should be: fun, functional and simple. It was also the next in a line of legendary and exceptionally long lived small Fiats. It started with the Topolino in 1935, which would last 20 years before being replaced by Danté Giacosa’s seminal ‘Nuova Cinquecento’, better known to you and me as the 500 and powered by an Aurelio Lampredi air-cooled two cylinder motor. That lasted another 20 years, although there was some production overlap at the end with its intended successor, the 126. In fact the 125 was just a heavily facelifted and far less appealing rethink of the original 500, which is why it was only around for comparatively trifling eight years before the Panda came along.

It is perhaps not as appreciated as it should be that the first Panda was the longest lived of the lot, surviving fully 23 years in the marketplace before being deemed in need of replacement. Even the Cinquecento, introduced after the Panda had been on sale for over a decade as a more direct albeit somewhat belated replacement for the 126, couldn’t kill it. Designed by none other than Giorgetto Giugiaro at Ital Design, the Panda represented Fiat small car design at its superb best, a shape apparently born entirely out of function that somehow also managed to package considerable charm within its compact dimensions. It became instantly cool, and bought not just because it was small and cheap, but because it said good things about the values and taste of those who owned them.

That said, the very early Pandas weren’t that great. The engines – either the now very old twin or the pushrod 903cc four from the 127, were extremely long in the tooth but the real problem was its leaf spring rear suspension that provided ride quality that varied between mediocre and appalling depending on the road surface. But the first facelift in 1986 brought not only Fiat’s new FIRE (Fully Integrated Robotised Engine) overhead cam engine, but also a U-shaped rear beam axle known as Omega. Together they transformed the car.

The two subsequent generations of Panda have gone the way of all automotive flesh: bigger, heavier, more sophisticated, but thankfully without entirely losing sight of their roots. The current car’s been in the market for eight years and the last time I drove one it still had an honesty about it that’s increasingly rare to see these days.

And I’ll confess to a small Panda-based obsession of mine too. I live quite remotely in the Welsh borders and though snow is an increasingly rare event, when it comes you need proper weaponry to deal with it. And were it not for the Series III Land Rover I keep the shed (and in which I passed my test so can never sell), I’d be fighting my way through the drifts in a Panda 4x4. Because it is compact and relatively so light, I’d back it to maintain progress in adverse conditions over any number of posh SUVs costing ten or twenty times as much. And if you put proper winter tyres on it, I reckon it would be just about unstoppable.

I wonder too if the world is not now also ripening for another simply brilliant and brilliantly simple Fiat: the more I think about it the more I think COVID-19 will accelerate to warp speed the end of the era of excess which was always coming. And I can see a time when people crave once more small cars with inspired design, but not just because they are affordable, but because they are relevant and say the right things about their owners. Just like the Panda did 40 years ago. Happy birthday.