From Car Magazine's long-term review of the Twin Air Panda (I'm back researching possible future purchases).

 

I used to buy both Car Magazine and Top Gear back in the day, primarily for the purposes of reading these articles.  

Sad to say, in my view, the current crop of Car Magazines aren't worth anything beyond brief on-line perusal.

 

Month 5: running a Fiat Panda: 'the Panda stands up well to a careless shunt'

There’s a sublime episode of Father Ted in which he and Dougal attempt to tap out the smallest of dings on a car donated for a raffle prize. Of course, being Ted and Dougal, they end up flaying the whole thing into an exquisitely and entirely delaminated construct.

 

Despite not being entirely convinced by the Panda’s ‘squircle’-infested styling, I’m fairly certain that little positive rectification would be achieved by similarly attacking it with a large lump of metal. Though someone had other ideas because – alas – the poor Panda has been subjected to a savage and unsolicited assault by a Blue Rinse Biddie-aimed battering-ram shaped much like a Volkswagen Polo.

 

Minding my own business one cheery, I-am-bloody-NOT-listening-to-Tony-Blackburn-so-it’ll-have-to-be-Radio-4 Saturday afternoon, I tailed said Polo into a garden centre car park, whereupon it exited, stage left. I was just considering where to park up when the VW reappeared, at ramming speed, on my port bow.

 

There was to be no windscreen-cracking, cursing co-pilot-accompanied barrel-rolling here, however. It was more like a low impact-speed Lambada, the cars thrust together in grinding embrace, pirouetting through a graunching, graceless 90-degree  before coming to a standstill. No one was hurt, and no airbags were deployed in the pile-up.

 

Almost a pity, that; let me explain.

 

Years ago, Saab hosted an ice-driving time trial for a motley crew of international hacks. Happily, the British team’s chances were vastly improved (as he himself pointed out) by the presence of the most pompous, obnoxious Frenchman I have ever met. Fat cigar protruding from fat head, he insisted on going first. 

 

Ahhh, the collective power of thought. Willed into mishap by the combined might of miffed English minds, he never made it round the first bend. He assaulted the adjacent snow bank with sufficient vim to set off the airbag, which duly smeared myriad chunks of red-hot Monte Cristo all over his smug chops. No Englishman dodged the gentle indignity of having just a whiff of wee escape into his smalls that afternoon. Ever since, I’ve wondered what an airbag in the face must feel like.

 

Anyway, although the Polo pilot (somewhat ironically hunting for the hospital next door, it transpired) was sufficiently shaken, she also proved sufficiently compos mentis not to admit liability.

 

The VW certainly bested the Fiat, pushing the whole front suspension assembly backwards far enough to jam the tyre solidly against the rear of the wheel arch, making it undriveable.

 

For only the second time in my life I came to experience the three most disheartening consequences of an injury-free accident: the appalling, extended ‘baaaang’ of crumpling metal served with a garnish of tinkling trim; the sudden metamorphosis of man’s only freedom into an immoveable hunk of costly junk and the dread, out-of-cigarettes wait for the rescue services.

 

The AA was, of course, superb. Until it wasn’t. Some two hours after the quoted deadline had expired, precisely the low-loader I’d suggested would be useless lumbered up. Moving at the speed of lard, the operative first attempted to drive the Panda (wince) before deploying every plastic wedge in his armoury to painstakingly scrape it aboard.

 

My last stogie long since smoked and a bottle of Famous Grouse now positively bellowing for attention from my larder, it… took… an… eternity. And to add insult to lack of injury, the AA operative even stopped on the way home to buy himself something to eat.

And the lessons to be learned from this sorry tale? Take sandwiches and a good book everywhere; don’t bite the nice AA man; and never, ever build a hospital next door to a garden centre.

 

By Anthony ffrench-Constant (©️)

Tyres (& and the ability of the driver) probably key factors, although what a great video from an advertising perspective 👍