Recently we all had a look at the well equipped, sharp looking Fiat Panda 4×4 of today. Festooned with decorative trinketry, though admittedly very tastefully done, the Panda has matured into a middle-class urban commuter with a surprising amount of sophistication.

Time, then, to back-track a little to when the Panda was, well, quite a lot more simple. It followed the  “transport for the masses” concept that made Fiat such a recognised force around the world, and did so without emulating anything that had gone before.

Fresh thinking from Fiat, back in the early 80s, with the original Panda.

“When the Panda first arrived on Britain’s roads, it raised a few eyebrows”

That’s no lie. Guigiaro, the man with the pen (and presumably a set square, but no French curves), was doing a roaring trade in high-profile pointy, darty, straight edge designs, and here was an exquisite example of his art. “Box it came in” was a phrase frequently muttered by observers and other designers who were probably jealous that they hadn’t thought of it first.

It’s actually amazing to compare the Panda with its rivals of the time, the Renault 5, the Austin Metro and the Ford Fiesta; three cars which we typically view as boxy little things, and see just how much curvature and sculpture they display compared to the Panda. As a result, the Panda was somehow both extremely of-its-time yet simultaneously classical and undating.

“Here, for perhaps the first time, was a small car that didn’t expect its owner to compromise in any way”

That was one of those typically unfocussed and meaningless sentences and I don’t really understand it. In this context I have to assume they were trying to hint at that old small-car size, big-car feel theme, hackneyed as it may seem and disingenuous as it often is. Fortunately we can grant Fiat that the Panda was a relatively spacious car, thanks to compact mechanical packaging, upright seating and a high interior ceiling.

“More style, which in the case of the Super comes in the shape of a redesigned front end (the five diagonal bar motif will soon be a familiar symbol on all new Fiat cars”

Indeed, those five bars went on to distinguish such cars as the near-legendary Uno, the less legendary Tempra, and the almost totally unlegendary Croma.

“The distinctive grey moulded resin bumpers shrug off knocks up to 4mph and are also better equipped to absorb impacts at say, 30 or 40mph”

Are you insane? A 40mph crash in an early generation Panda can’t have been a pretty sight, and when they suggest that sort of closing velocity I wouldn’t want to be pitted against much more than a bicycle, or perhaps some air. However, the grey resin bumpers remain a design touch that I really want to see come back.

Who on earth decided that body-colour bumpers were a good idea on small, urban cars? String ’em up. My parents still own (and the fact that it’s still going is testament to my Dads welding skillz and extreme reluctance to give up on anything that displays even the merest flicker of life) one of the original Ford KAs, with the original dark grey polycarbonate bumpers which genuinely are impervious to all but the most sustained attacks of carelessness or idiocy.

“The Panda Comfort is everything the name suggests”

I think we’re talking about the same level of comfort here that a lady might enjoy from a well-designed sanitary towel, or a bra that doesn’t constantly stab her in the chest with intrusive underwiring. We’re not so much talking about comfort per se, more a lack of actual discomfort. And in this kind of car, that was enough.

“The seats are, as you can see, slimmer than conventional car seats yet they are both comfortable and offer excellent support for your back”

Indeed, CAR commented that “The hammock-style seats seem more comfortable than it appears they will be. ” The one thing that was universally agreed was that the bounciness of the ride was inescapable, and seemed to be a limitation brought on by those dimensions and that extra-compact suspension system. But hey, nobody expected it to ride like a hovercraft. And don’t forget, it also featured;

“An ingenious ashtray that can be moved to any position you find convenient”

It’s true! The bottom roll of the dashboard, which created a sort of full-width lateral storage trough, had a module which could be slid into any position within its length. If I had a Panda I’d be touring scrapyards and collecting a multitude of those sliding ashtrays. One is good, but surely his ‘n hers dual ashtrays, for your reds and her menthols, would be even better.

“Turn the rear seat into the perfect bag and bottle carrier”

Utility was the thing with the Panda, and to a certain extent today it still is. The above sentence can be attributed to the rear bench seat, which could be folded every which way  including one particular arrangement that created, like with the dashboard, a sort of lateral storage trough. Its use was suggested to be the carriage of bottles and bags, but that seems a but whimsical. My guess is that it wasn’t actually designed-in at all and came about as a happy accident while somebody was messing about with the seats.  Somehow this by-product of the folding mechanism sparked the marketing guys to realise that “Aha! We can market this!”.

The early cars to make it to the UK were all powered by the 903cc pushrod engine that saw service in the 127 of the olden days. It was a perfectly adequate unit by all accounts, trundling the little Fiat towards an eventual maximum of 87mph, gathering 60mph 18.6 seconds after setting off. If that was too much power, you could head to Europe where the 26hp 652cc two out of the Fiat 126 could be chosen, or for heavyweight load-lugging duties, a 1.3 litre diesel could be had.

Just as it can today.

(Disclaimer: All images are of original manufacturer publicity material. All copyright remains property of Fiat SPa, who need to start selling a Sisley 4×4 again with white steel wheels)