Now tell me: doesn’t this just look really cool?
Now that almost all cars are on the same platform, design is more important than ever. That is about the only way to distinguish yourself. Fiat has succeeded very well with the new ‘Grande Panda’. After the cuddly last generations, they are now going back to the robust, angular shapes of the original Panda.
The Grande Panda is not a direct copy of the first Panda, but the link is clearly there. Fiat has also pulled off some nice design tricks, such as the lettering on the side and the pixel headlights that complete the 80s theme. The latter may have been copied from Hyundai, but that is a case of ‘better stolen well…’.
Can you make the Grande Panda even cooler? Yes, Garage Italia shows. This shop is dedicated to sprucing up Fiats and also has close ties with the brand. The founder is Lapo Elkann, the enfant terrible of the Agnelli family.
They have visualized the Grande Panda with various well-known Panda liveries. Of course, the Sisley version is not missing and we also see an Italia 90 version. This was a special edition on the occasion of the 1990 World Cup, which was held in Italy at the time. The Netherlands did not win a single match at that time, so let’s not talk about that any further.
The Panda has also been used by various Italian government services in the past, and we see that again. Garage Italia has designed a police Panda and a forest ranger Panda, among other things. But the coolest version is perhaps that of SIP. This is the Italian KPN, which used to drive around in Pandas, including a ladder on the roof and a ‘dormer’ on the back.
As you can see, these are still just renders, but once the Grande Panda is in production, Garage Italia will definitely take on a few real ones. And who knows, you might even get pulled over by a Carabinieri Grande Panda.
Images: Garage Italia
Comments
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pomoek say
what a shitty wk that was…
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JelmerS say
Model can handle it all, hats off to the designers
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harry say
Yay steelies!
