The Fiat Panda 4x4 is back! Well, as a concept anyway…

It’s no secret that the design of the new Fiat Grande Panda was heavily inspired by the beloved and very boxy Panda 4x4 from the eighties, and now the supremely funky supermini has fully embraced its ancestry, much to our delight.

We have some good news and bad news for you, though. The bad news is the Grande Panda 4x4 you see here is just a concept. But the good news is that we’re confident Fiat will try to put the baby off-roader into production, should customers demand it, or at least offer the option of four-wheel drive in the regular Grande Panda. 

Mostly because it's a fond part of the Panda’s heritage, and there have been three iterations of the Panda 4x4 to date. But also because a similar version of the new Renault 4 has been on the cards for a long time, and was hinted at very recently by the R4 Savane 4x4 concept. 

If it does happen, the Grande Pande will be the first model based on Stellantis’s Smart Car platform - which also underpins the Citroen C3 and Vauxhall Frontera - to feature four-wheel drive, thanks to an extra electric motor on the rear axle. Fiat says “[the electrified rear axle] feature would enable the Grande Panda 4x4 to deliver impressive performance in urban settings and on more demanding terrain.” 

We assume the Grande Panda 4x4 will be a hybrid, rather than a pure-electric, just like the Jeep Avenger 4xe that has one e-motor at the rear and another up front, working together with a 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine. In fact, we suspect the Fiat features the exact same set-up, but the brand hasn’t shared any technical details yet.

Fiat has had some fun with the styling, too, adding the small pixel-effect spot lights on the nose and mounted to the roof rack, which offers enough space for what looks like a full-size spare wheel and tool kit. There’s some unique 4x4 badging dotted around, while the graphics down the side highlight the Panda name that’s stamped into the doors.

Finally, the deep Dark Red paint is contrasted by the beige steel wheels wrapped in some nobbly all-terrain tyres, fake skid plates in the front and rear bumpers, and black plastic cladding along the sides.

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