Fiat Panda 100HP Fast Fleet test – living with a £2000 pocket rocket

The other month I said to a mate that I had developed a sudden craving for a Panda 100HP. Unfortunately, the mate was Jonny Smith with whom I make the Smith and Sniff podcast and we were recording our show at the time. As a result, my idle remark went quite a lot further than if I’d muttered it quietly in a pub.

Soon after that episode went live, the messages started to arrive, mostly from Panda 100HP owners uniformly raving about their cars. Not that I needed telling. I loved the 100HP when it was new and seriously considered buying one. I can’t remember why I didn’t. I do remember being quite jealous of Richard Meaden who ran one as his long-termer back in 2007. So that was it. With a bit of podcast peer pressure on my back and a healthy, perhaps rose-tinted memory of this car in my mind, I went looking online and discovered that Panda prices cover a pretty broad span.

> Fiat Panda 100HP (2006-2010): a driver's supermini for under £3000

At the top end, one garage offered a pair of immaculate low-mileage 100HPs for over seven grand apiece, clearly hoping to get in early on the car’s modern classic vibe. At the other end of the spectrum, MOT-failure cars can go for well under a grand. In terms of condition, I wanted somewhere in between and, mindful that this was a car I wanted rather than needed, I aimed to go as low as practical while not buying a total basket case.

And then I was introduced to a man called Jai. You see, when you mention a car craving in a public arena, people don’t just encourage you to act on it; sometimes they offer up the very thing that will satisfy it. There were a number of things that attracted me to Jai’s 100HP, one of them being Jai himself, who is such a Fiathead he owns a Tipo Sedicivalvole. He also sees himself as some sort of Panda rescuer, so when he spotted this car for sale, artlessly covered in stickers, sitting on cackhanded aftermarket suspension, and limping because of a crunchy gearbox and a duff coolant pipe, he decided to save it, mending the pipework, replacing the ’box, and returning it as much as possible to factory spec. The other thing that attracted me to this car in particular was the price, which went from reasonable to very reasonable after a short bit of negotiating.

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Personally, I feel a Panda 100HP is two grand well spent. But we’ve recently moved house and my wife would probably prefer that money go towards some curtains or a new kitchen, so I dodged this issue by buying and collecting the car when she was out of the country on business. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission and all that. Her mood on discovering the car, a few days after her return, was best described as ‘unamused’. Still, at least one of us was pleased with our new car.

In fact, I was delighted, because the Panda proved to be just as fun as I remembered. Better yet, my recollection of the punishing ride quality was actually wide of the mark. Sometimes it actually feels quite sophisticated, padding over minor ruts and blips with the firm but well-damped bearing of a BMW M car. Conversely, in some circumstances it’s comically bouncy, but there are things you can do about that, which I’ll investigate in due course.

The real star of the show, however, is the naturally aspirated 1.4-litre four-cylinder engine, which comes on strong with an almost turbo-like surge at 2000rpm and then keeps on pulling, encouraging you to thrash it just because. Also in the plus column, the brakes feel strong, and the gearchange is pretty good too.

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Of course, you can’t expect everything to be peachy with a two-grand Panda. Jai warned me one of the wheel bearings wasn’t in great health and a rumble from the front confirms it. Possibly related to this, the car pulls to the right under acceleration and darts to the left if you then lift off. So that needs looking at. Also, the radio doesn’t work.

Cosmetically, it’s a good 10-foot car but closer inspection reveals dings, scratches and swirls plus evidence of kerbing that stands out because a previous owner painted the wheels grey. I don’t mind the look, but the scuffing is annoying and hard to fix while matching to the unknown colour of the alloys. I’ll look into a solution, while remembering not to get giddy and blow half the car’s value on making it look perfect. The aim here, initially at least, is to prioritise mechanical heartiness and the pursuit of cheap thrills. On the basis of how it drives, I think the Panda has got that second part well covered.

This story was first featured in evo issue 306.