With the day after tomorrow type weather we now seem to have I have a hankering for the above. Am I going mad wanting a car built in Italy?

The new twin air 2013 model interests me.

What engine do you think this little monster is using? Hyabussa? GSXR ?

I test drove the 4cyl diesel and the 2cyl twin-air.

Not impressed. The diesel is quieter and better to drive, but it's still agricutural (and overpriced) compared to a VAG CR diesel.

Wow! I've always liked the Panda 4x4. The new one are getting a little pricey, tried finding a mk2 one a few years ago, but they were few and far between and held there money well.

Don't rely on the twin air for economy though.

Yeah, the twin air seems very difficult to get near the claimed mpg.

I do like the new Panda in general though.

Thanks for the feed back! It seems to receive good reviews particularly for it off road skills. Last time I had a parallel twin engine it was in a Honda CB 400 super dream and that was crap!

I was interested in buying a twin air 4x4, hence the test drive.

Hated it. Noisy, underpowered and gutless (IMO) so they offered me a test drive in the diesel, which is £1000 more.

It's a lot better, but still a noisy old sounding diesel.

Problems for me where:

Overpriced. Around £5-6k more than a Panda to get 4x4 ???

New model, so little discount.

Both engines noisy and fairly gutless.

Height adjustable seat optional extra.

No reach adjustment on the stering wheel.

Lots of body roll.

Price too close to base 4x4 Yeti to make any kind of sense for a smaller car with less kit, comfort, worse ride and far noisier engine..

Good points:

Fashionable.

Likely to hold money well.

Engine being agricultural probably means it'll be reliable as well used in other models already.

Yeah, the 4x4 does seem pricey, but loads of cars have jumped up in the last few years. You could get the last of the old shape standard pandas for about £6k and now it's 9.

It's much improved but 50% extra......?

<edit>

Found them cheaper, but not the 4x4.

http://www.fiatsupasaver.com/SelectACar.aspx?vID=88

Edited 27 March, 201313 yr by Dr Zoidberg

@Bossfox just how many cars do you need mate ? :p

I don't know about the 4x4 version but the regular Panda with the twinair is a lot of fun. My friends in Italy have one as a runabout and it is very nippy and sounds good if you like that sort of thing. It won't be to everyone's taste though as the engine has a lot of two cylinder thrum at high revs but I think it just adds a bit of character and you can get them for under £9K on fiatsupasaver. Autocar reckons it is probably the best citycatr going and nearly got 5 stars. Build quality seems good from the new Naples factory too.

Steve Cropley is running one at the moment and he says you can get 50mpg out of it but you need to drive it gently. Being a two cylinder he says it sounds like it is turning slower than it really is so the redline sometimes comes as a surprise. That and the fact the engine delivers its best at high revs and that throaty noise means that one is rather tempted to rag it

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/fiat/panda/first-drives/fiat-panda-twinair

As to reliability of the twinair: it coped with this ok

http://www.africarecordrun.com/

Edited 27 March, 201313 yr by Matt Bodycombe

I love 4x4 Pandas. I drove the original 1.0 version and it was unstoppable, well once it actually got going (talk about slow). I was looking for a Panda Cross (have been for a couple of years in fact) but the second hand prices are crazy, hence I now have a Suzy Grand Vitara 3dr. I also love the new 4x4, but also seems just a tad on the expensive side when you can get the Dacia with quite a bit of kit for the same money.

Lady Eleanor yes I agree with you about the Dacia: it is bigger and has a better diesel for less money. You can get big discounts on the standard Panda though and I have always been a fan of small FIATs anyway as my first car was a Fiat Uno 45S. Although it had all of 45 bhp it took 100k miles of full throttle all day everyday. The engine was terrific in terms of reliability it was a shame the rest of the car fell apart around it. However the new Panda twinair fwd in my opinion is a great little car and the 85 bhp in it feels pretty nippy. I can only guess that the additional weight and the 4wd transmission make it feel tardy :/

BTW ignore the Italian and this is a nice extended testdrive of a twinair. The guy does say the twinair sounds good like the old 500 but is noisy with some vibration though

Edited 28 March, 201313 yr by Matt Bodycombe

There is the Suzuki SX4 as well. I think it shares a platform with Fiat.

Lady Eleanor yes I agree with you about the Dacia: it is bigger and has a better diesel for less money. You can get big discounts on the standard Panda though and I have always been a fan of small FIATs anyway as my first car was a Fiat Uno 45S. Although it had all of 45 bhp it took 100k miles of full throttle all day everyday. The engine was terrific in terms of reliability it was a shame the rest of the car fell apart around it. However the new Panda twinair fwd in my opinion is a great little car and the 85 bhp in it feels pretty nippy. I can only guess that the additional weight and the 4wd transmission make it feel tardy :/

BTW ignore the Italian and this is a nice extended testdrive of a twinair. The guy does say the twinair sounds good like the old 500 but is noisy with some vibration though

I too love small Fiats. I've had an X1/9, Uno 55S (series 1), Strada Abarth 130TC, Uno Turbo ie (series 2) and a Sedici 4x4. All very characterful cars and I have happy memories about all of them, even if the 130TC was a bit of a money pit. I also owned a Lancia Coupe which had the Fiat 2.0TC engine and I loved it, even though it was possibly the worst built car I ever clapped eyes on :(

There is the Suzuki SX4 as well. I think it shares a platform with Fiat.

It does indeed. I owned the Fiat version. Superb in the snow with it's locking centre differential (well sort of)