It has always been accepted that the car is the second most expensive thing
you will ever buy, after a house. Really?
Anne Robinson admitted in her newspaper column last weekend that she has been
bombing around in a Perodua Kelisa — a car built in a jungle clearing by
people who go to work in shoes made from leaves.
Nonetheless, it costs just £5,000, so taking a family of four to the Caribbean
for a summer holiday would be considerably more expensive.
There are other things which cost more, too, like a pair of binoculars I saw
the other day in a shop window on Walton Street, or some kitchen cabinets,
or a piece of jewellery from one of those shops on Bond Street. You could,
if you were a mentalist, spend £5,000 on a suit, or a cooker, or a set of
speakers for your drawing room.
Getting married costs more than a Perodua Kelisa. Getting divorced costs more
than two. And you’d need a fleet to pay for the cost of educating a child,
or dying.
The thing is, though, that you don’t want a Perodua Kelisa because it sounds
like a disease, only has three cylinders and takes a fortnight or so to
accelerate from nought to sixty. You know that you can’t have a real car,
not a new one anyway, for much less than £9,000.
I would have concurred, but then, for reasons that aren’t exactly clear,
someone brought a new Fiat Panda round to my house to test. The cheapest
version costs £6,295 and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that Elton
John spent more than that on his hair.
I therefore wasn’t expecting much. And to reinforce this view, I remember the
old Fiat Panda well. Styled by someone who only had access to a ruler, it
came with hammocks instead of seats, no interior trim and the top speed of a
Galapagos turtle. It was fine for the walnut-faced peasantry of Italy but
not really on for anywhere else.
I was therefore a little surprised to find that the cheapest new Panda comes
as standard with electric windows, an adjustable steering column, remote
central locking, pre-tensioning seatbelts, two airbags, a stereo and power
steering that can be made super-light in the city.
Much more is available. Air-conditioning, for instance, as well as a sunroof,
a CD player, parking sensors and airbags for your testicles. But even if you
go mad with the options list, it’s still nowhere near the second most
expensive thing you’ll ever buy. I bet Barry Manilow spent more on his new
nose. I bet Danniella Westbrook spent more powdering hers.
Hell, I bet you couldn’t even buy a real panda for £6,300.
The first time I went out in it, it was raining. After half a mile the rain
had turned to a sort of icy hail and five minutes later it felt like I’d
gone to another planet. Or maybe Canada. There was thunder, lightning and a
blizzard of such ferocity that within moments the road was invisible under
its new white blanket.
In front of me a Range Rover slithered to a halt, bumping into the kerb, then
sliding back down the hill. Ordinary cars had had it, their fat, sporty
tyres utterly lost in the Arctic chill.
Yet my little Panda soldiered on, its skinny little rubber tyres cutting
through the snow like four Stanley knives. Not once did it even give the
impression of being in difficulty.
The next time I went out in it was Saturday night and it had an even bigger
surprise up its sleeve. The back was so roomy that it not only swallowed all
three children but even gave them enough space in which to fight.
And then it was Sunday morning and time for mini-rugby. Now since Jonny
Wilkinson punted that last-minute drop-goal between the posts in Sydney, the
number of people turning up with their offspring for training has swelled to
the point where the car park looks like Bangkok at rush hour.
But this was no problem with the Panda, which slotted neatly between the posts
of a croquet hoop on the bowling green. “What the hell’s that?” cried the
dads, mocking my car’s unusual appearance. “Handy,” I replied, mocking the
four-mile walk they’d had from the field where they’d parked their BMW X5s.
And there’s another advantage the Panda has over its larger and more expensive
siblings. Normally it takes three or four minutes for their big engines to
heat the cabin. But the Fiat was amazing. Turn on the engine — I timed this
— and in just 21 seconds soothing warmth was flowing through the heater
vents. In fact, it goes from 0 to 60C almost as fast as it goes from 0 to
60mph.
The 1.1 litre version takes 15 seconds to cover this yardstick and that, in
human terms, is 18 months. The 1.2 isn’t much better, taking 14 seconds,
although for some extraordinary reason it’s more economical. It’ll average
more than 50mpg.
However, I don’t want you to be put off by the lack of performance, because
being Italian, it never feels underpowered or lethargic. In fact, I have to
say it feels like the fastest car I’ve ever driven.
After the snow had been blown away by the gales, and the roads returned to
normal, I couldn’t believe how much fun the Fiat was. Panda? Grizzly more
like. You roar away from junctions in a cocoon of noise. “Grrrrrr”, it goes
up through first and “Grrrrr” again all the way through second.
You brake late for the corner, turn in, and so long as you have the steering
in its “normal” setting there’s a huge amount of feedback from the road. It
doesn’t whisper or mumble; it shouts at you through a megaphone. I’ve driven
sports cars that are less communicative.
This is a car that puts a huge grin on your face. It waves its arms about and
shouts, much like a waiter in an Italian restaurant. And sticking with this
metaphor for a moment, the food it serves up, with aplomb, is delicious and
tasty too.
But the best thing is you’re rarely going faster than 24mph. And this means
you can have all the excitement of driving with almost none of the danger.
If the brakes were to fail, for instance, you’d coast to a halt long before
you hit the hedge.
And that, of course, brings me on to the biggest problem with all Fiats. We
assume the brakes will fail, and that the crankshaft will come off, and that
the windows will start to play the hokey cokey while the central locking
thinks it’s the horn. Fiats feel flimsy.
And it’s not just a perception either. In the recent Top Gear
survey, Fiat had two cars in the bottom 10 and none at all above 93rd.
Owners criticised quality, poor dealers and the high cost of spare parts.
Nearly 72% of Seicento drivers said they would not buy one again.
The Panda, however, breaks with tradition here. It feels much more robust than
the Renault Mégane CC I wrote about two weeks ago, but then a binliner would
also have felt more robust. No, the Panda feels German. It feels like bits
won’t drop off. It feels good.
Of course, this is only a feeling. The car was launched just two weeks ago so
it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the long run. But I will say
it’s worth more of a punt than a Punto.
Put simply, I loved it. When it was here, I drove nothing else. The Mercedes
SL, the Volvo XC90, all the other test cars, they all just sat on the drive
as I bombed hither and thither in my new best friend.
Quite apart from being a proper, grown-up car, it has two tricks up its sleeve
that are hard to ignore. It has a wonderful personality and it costs less
than an Aga.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Fiat Panda 1.1
Engine type: Four-cylinder, 1108cc
Power: 54bhp @ 5000rpm
Torque: 65 lb ft @ 2750rpm
Transmission: Five-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Suspension: (front) MacPherson struts lower wishbones, anti-roll
bar (rear) torsion beam, trailing arms, coil springs
Fuel: 49.6mpg (combined)
CO2: 135g/km
Top speed: 93mph
Acceleration: 0 to 62mph: 15.0sec
Price: £6,295
Verdict: Charming, capable, characterful and cheap
