Save the Panda. Not from extinction, clearly: there still seem to be plenty of them around in their natural habitat, and it evidently remains possible to breed them in captivity without too many complications. Save the Panda, rather, from a uniquely disorientating, frustration-inducing (and possibly even worse) fate - the arrival of a cute and attention-grabbing sibling.

All was well in the Panda's world as recently as last year. It knew a reliable place in the Fiat family as the smallest and most adored member - a plucky little fun-wagon, capable of mimicking the grown-up manners of much bigger cars in a way that adults seemed to find rather loveable. If it had had cheeks, people would have spent a lot of time tweaking them.

The next thing it knows, the Fiat 500 turns up. The 500 is immediately heralded as a fashion icon and seems to press all sorts of hot buttons relating to modern urban living and retro styling. Even more annoyingly, it starts walking off with just about every Car of the Year prize going. And suddenly when people talk about Fiats, they talk about little else.

All in all, the 500 has made the Panda look like a cardboard box with windows, which was almost the point of the Panda, in a way, though no one had ever rubbed it in quite so aggressively; certainly not a member of the Panda's own family. In the circumstances, you would have forgiven the Panda a spell of bad behaviour and some flagrant attention-seeking, in the form of scratching, biting or throwing things. It's how most siblings react when a rival gets dumped in their sitting room.

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BACKGROUND

• Fiat Croma review

• Fiat Multipla review

• Fiat Panda review

• Fiat Punto review

BACKGROUND

• Fiat Panda 100HP review

• Fiat Panda 4x4 review

• Fiat Punto review

• Fiat Panda review

• Fiat 500

And yet, no. All credit to the Panda for somehow keeping its cool, failing to throw up its arms in despair, and even beginning to fight something of a rearguard action for respect on its own terms.

After all, there are some people who don't like the 500. Not many, it's true. But some. These are people who find the whole 500 phenomenon a bit ersatz and overly design-led. This is a winnable constituency for the Panda, where no such problems apply. In any case, the Panda has something that the 500 will never have - namely, four doors, meaning that your passengers can climb into the rear cabin without having to fold themselves in half down the middle and then post themselves behind a tilted front seat.

It's also much more adaptable than the 500. The present generation of Pandas comes in no fewer than seven different formats, ranging from the standard kid-lugger, with a number of different sized engines, through to the Panda 100HP, in which the car gets an unnecessarily big, 1.4-litre engine and a set of visible brake callipers and reaches out to a whole new generation of uninsured car-jackers.

Most superbly of all, there's the Panda 4x4, with its 5cm (count 'em) of additional ride height and its toughened-up grille, preparing it (allegedly) for UN missions over rough terrain, but most of all providing a snortingly good joke at the expense of the Chelsea Tractor.

There's still an unoccupied niche, one notes, for a Stretch Panda - three Pandas welded together, perhaps, for the more modest kind of hen night. And the Fiat catalogue as yet lacks an open-backed Panda Pick-Up. But it's clear that the Panda has, potentially, the supreme transformational ability that the Mini once had, which has to be a good sign for its longevity.

We drove the 1.3 diesel Panda, which is about as frugal and sensible as a Panda gets. It was solidly built and generously furnished, but parts of the seats were a perky blue, just to remind you that the car wasn't taking itself too seriously.

It was also fantastically easy to manoeuvre, having a turning circle approximately the size of a bottle-top. To drive a small, whizzy run-about such as the Panda in a crowded urban context is to experience a tangible lowering of the shoulders. One also notices that one's grip on the steering wheel, which, in any sizeable car, is normally set like concrete, has relaxed - to the point, even, where one's fingers don't have to be prised off the wheel by a third party at the end of the journey.

It's altogether less stressful, in other words, and because one wasn't caught up in the drama of navigating a car through spaces that were barely big enough for it, one had time to experience emotions towards one's fellow road-users that, on closer inspection, looked suspiciously like consideration. But that's the Panda. It may not be all that pretty, but it spreads the love.

Top speed: 99mph

Acceleration: 0-62 in 13 seconds

Average consumption: 65.7mpg

CO2 emissions: 114g/km

Eco rating: 8/10

One careful owner: Kylie Minogue

On the stereo: Atomic Kitten

In the glovebox: Haribo Cola Bottles

Bound for: Thorpe Park

Buy it because: you're big enough

Marks out of 10: 8

Price: from £8,100