Fiat Grande Panda Review & Prices

The Fiat Panda is back like it never left, in new-and-improved Grande Panda form. It’s a small hatchback with SUV aspirations in its retro styling and a raised ride height, and has a spacious interior and a frugal hybrid engine under the bonnet. It’s just a shame the little Fiat feels cheap inside.

Just like firing up your childhood games console for a few rounds of nostalgia, the Grande Panda is full of charm and its pixelated retro-ness can’t help but make you smile.

There’s a wide array of dinky little hybrid hatchbacks to choose from at the moment, including the Toyota Yaris and Renault Clio, as well as the Citroen C3, which is mechanically similar to the Fiat. The all-electric Hyundai Inster and Renault 5 are also worth a look-in, especially considering you can opt for the battery-powered Fiat Grande Panda Electric.

Only the Renault, its Nissan Micra sibling and the Hyundai look as good as the Grande Panda. The world seems to be having a retro-minded moment, with Fiat being no exception, but the little hatchback’s bold embossed Panda script down its sides, boxy silhouette and transparent taillights look great. The pixelated headlights are nifty, too, but are uncannily similar to the Hyundai Santa Fe.

The interior is another assortment of retro touches and bold features, with a dashboard consisting of a cylindrical pod spanning the width of a larger oval-shaped section. The air vents are cuboids, while the easy to use (but basic) 10.3-inch infotainment and 10.0-inch driver displays are contained in another oval, this time in lime-green acrylic.

You won’t struggle for storage, between a pair of glove compartments, an open shelf between them, standard-fit wireless phone charging, a pair of cupholders, large door bins and a small hidden cubby between the seats.

There’s plenty of adjustment and plenty of head and leg room to get comfortable both front and rear, though there’s more back seat space in a Vauxhall Frontera. Three abreast in the back is asking a bit too much, however. The 412-litre boot is the little Fiat’s party piece, far bigger than the Renault Clio, Renault 5 and Citroen C3.

Under the bonnet you’ll find a 1.2-litre hybrid engine, putting out a modest 110hp and a claimed 56.5mpg. We managed to achieve around 48mpg on our fast-paced, countryside test route - which is fairly impressive.

The Grande Panda is at its best in the city, where it’s capable of running on electric-only power at low speeds. It’s comfortable over big speed bumps, though pot holes and broken roads do thud through the cabin. The light steering is easy to twirl around which makes for effortless manoeuvres, but it's a shame rear visibility is so poor when trying to park.

It doesn’t feel out of its depths on a country lane, but there’s a fair amount of body lean when changing direction quickly - even if it’s not too bad around most bends. At motorway speeds you’ll notice wind noise from the side pillars, but it’s not too intrusive.

Verdict

The Fiat Grande Panda is a great choice for an easy-to-drive, stylish and practical city car. It’s not quite as chic as the Renault Clio, nor is it as versatile inside as a Hyundai Inster, but its rugged charm earns it lots of brownie points. It’ll make for a great first car, too.

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Starting at just under £19,000, the Fiat Grande Panda Pop offers solid value for money considering its standard equipment such as rear parking sensors, LED lights and wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto.

It’s tempting to upgrade to a £20,000 Icon model with gloss black trims and tinted rear glass, or even the £22,000 La Prima to get the bamboo dashboard trim and some snazzy alloys, but there’s a kind of pleasant honesty about a basic Pop with its lack of roof bars.

The Citroen C3 is the most obvious alternative to the Grande Panda, as both cars are similarly priced and they’re identical under the skin, or you could spend slightly more and get a Skoda Fabia which has a roomier interior (albeit a smaller boot). While a basic Dacia Sandero is nowhere near as stylish as a Grande Panda, it would save you around £4,000 up front, which is not to be sneezed at.

The Grande Panda is comfortable over speed bumps, but potholes shake it about

In town

The benefit to the Grande Panda’s tall suspension and relatively big wheels is the high seating position, which makes it an easy car to potter around town thanks to excellent forward visibility. The flat bonnet with its square corners helps to place the car on the road, while the light steering takes the strain out of parking.

Take it easy when putting your foot down out of a junction though, as the little Fiat has a tendency to spin a front wheel before traction control kicks in, while the gearbox is occasionally jerky and dim-witted. At least the brake pedal is well-judged.

What doesn’t help when parking are the enormous rear pillars and small door mirrors. Standard-fit rear parking sensors mitigate this to a certain degree, but over-the-shoulder visibility really is poor.

Another advantage of the tall suspension is that the Grande Panda is unfazed by large speed bumps, though it does occasionally have a little bounce over the other side. Sharp potholes and cracked roads unravel the Grande Panda a touch, sending jolts through the seats and steering wheel.

On the motorway

The Grande Panda doesn’t feel out of place on the motorway, though it takes its sweet time getting up to the national speed limit. Overtakes therefore require a bit of planning, and a lot of patience.

There isn’t too much road noise once you’re cruising, but the side pillars generate a bit of wind noise right next to you and your passengers’ heads. There’s some tyre roar too, but it’s not too intrusive.

On a twisty road

This is where Grande Panda surprises, because while far from sporty, it’s quite fun to hurl down a good country lane. There’s plenty of grip from its tyres, and though the steering is overly light and totally vague, it feels quite agile.

A downside to the quick steering is the Fiat’s tendency to wobble when changing direction. It’s not disconcerting, but combined with the bouncy suspension over bumps and crests at higher speeds means you’re better off taking it easy.

Still, this is no hot hatch and it performs rather well for such a cheap, tall little car. It’s more entertaining than its Citroen C3 counterpart, for example.

Plenty of space inside for four adults, but getting five inside is a struggle

It’s little surprise that such a boxy little hatchback offers up a lot of headroom for front seat passengers, but it’s the storage space in the Grande Panda that impresses the most. The seats are highly adjustable, and the steering wheel can move up-and-down as well as in-and-out - which isn’t a given in cheap small cars.

On paper the 13 litres of interior cubbies doesn’t sound like much, but in practise the double gloveboxes (one below the dash, one in the curious cylindrical pod), shallow shelf sandwiched between then, decent door bins, wireless phone charging pad and extra cubby between the front seats mean there’s loads of space for odds and ends.

A wireless phone charging pad comes as standard, while the cupholders come with adjustable inserts for different-sized beverages.

Space in the back seats

Space in the back of the Grande Panda is really rather good. Again, thanks to its boxy shape there’s loads of headroom compared to other small hatchbacks such as the Renault 5 and Peugeot 208. It’s a rather narrow car, that being said, so you’ll struggle to fit three adults in - especially as the centre console protrudes back into the footwell at the back.

There are seat-back pockets on both front seats, while handy little pouches above those are perfect for storing phones - meaning your rear passengers won’t have to awkwardly dig into their pockets to check messages on the go. I’d hate to see what dirty phone cases do to the white upholstery after a few years of sliding into them…

You’ll find a pair of ISOFIX child seat anchors on the outermost rear seats, but the zip-up fabric covers are annoying and fairly easy to snag with the hooks on your car seat.

Boot space

The boot is the Grande Panda’s piece-de-resistance, offering a mighty 412 litres of cargo capacity - more than you get in the much larger Volkswagen Golf and Toyota Corolla.

It’s not a very clever space, though, with only a pair of hooks and tie-down points to stop things rolling around. The load lip is particularly large, which is annoying for heavy items, and the seat backs don’t fold entirely flat like they do in a Hyundai Inster.

It’s stylish and fun inside, but the Grande Panda’s cabin feels very cheap, for the most part.

In a classic case of style over substance, Fiat has absolutely nailed the Grande Panda’s interior design. It’s weird enough to be fun without being outright strange, and the generous standard kit makes the car easy to live with.

You get a pair of screens as standard, and they’re the same in all trim levels - a 10.0-inch driver display and a 10.3-inch touchscreen infotainment. The instrument cluster is clear and easy to read, as you tap the end of the wiper stalk to toggle through the efficiency and music menus on the right side of the screen.

The infotainment is fairly basic, with a simple-to-navigate layout and large on-screen buttons which are easier to press than on a lot of systems. Even better to use are the physical climate controls mounted below (manual on Pop and Icon trims, automatic on the La Prima version).

Another win for common sense are the physical ADAS buttons, which sit next to the USB-C chargers and 12V connector. With a simple press-and-hold you can disengage the speed limit bong and the active lane assist, far easier than prodding through the menus.

It’s a shame the same sensibility couldn’t be applied to the Grande Panda’s interior material choices. The slab of gloss black plastic on the centre console was already awfully scratched-up on the almost-new test car we drove. The blue plastics on the dash and door cards may look funky, but they’re just as easy to scratch as the gloss materials, so families with young children beware.

The sole 1.2-litre hybrid engine in the Grande Panda is the same unit you’ll find in the Citroen C3 and Vauxhall Frontera, both of which are closely related to the Fiat under the skin. With 110hp at your disposal the Fiat is modestly nippy and highly efficient on the move.

Fiat claims the Grande Panda will see around 56mpg in everyday driving depending on trim, and we came somewhat close to that on our countryside test route with a 48mpg average. We’d expect to see an even higher figure around town where the Fiat can really lean on its electric motor, rather than the engine.

CO2 emissions of 115g/km in the entry-level Pop and 117g/km in the Icon and La Prima versions mean the Grande Panda sits in a low road tax bracket, and all versions duck under the luxury car supplement threshold. Company car drivers are better off with the Grande Panda Electric, however, which offers lower Benefit-in-Kind costs through a work scheme than the hybrid.

The Grande Panda has yet to have been tested by Euro NCAP, as is also the case with Citroen C3 and Vauxhall Frontera with which it shares its basic architecture. We’ll have to wait and see how it performs, but its standard fit assistance systems should put it in good stead for a respectable result.

*the basic three-year warranty is extended by a year with each approved service

Fiat came an unimpressive 21st out of 31 brands in the 2025 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, which isn’t a particularly reassuring result. Considering its mechanical similarity with Vauxhall (4th place) and Citroen (7th place), we can hope the Grande Panda fares well in the real world.

The Grande Panda comes with an industry standard three-year, 60,000-mile warranty. Again, this is nothing to shout from the rooftops about considering the Kia Picanto offers seven years and 100,000 miles of cover, while the Toyota Aygo X can be extended up to ten years and 100,000 miles with annual servicing.