My thoughts on driving a hired Fiat Grande Panda LaPrima Turbo 1200 ch for a week in the Alps and the South of France
The Grande Panda LaPrima is the SUV version of the ubiquitous Fiat Panda, the resemblance stops with the name, the shape is SUV not the blocky half-van seen on rural school runs and farms. There’s no way this is a “Panda on steroids”. It’s high, the profile is SUV and looks big, so is competitive in the arms race of road presence. Visually striking, the Grande Panda LaPrima turns heads. The style is blocky, like a Lego car. It looks like it might go off-road but it’s very much a suburban SUV.
Inside, the giant Panda is pretty similar to cars of this size. Big screen that keeps coming on even when you switch it off to concentrate on the driving. Numeric speedo only and no rev counter (or I couldn’t find it in the menus). The driving menu also seems to flick between options, it doesn’t stay on the big number option: fine that the consumption counters are there to consult but I don’t normally drive with them foremost.
We found the Grande Panda LaPrima was quiet on the road, both aero noise and engine noise. Stable at speed on French autoroutes but getting lively if you push it. Physical buttons to silence the lane and speed warnings, which is nice although both reactivate after every engine stop. Two presses to blank the screen but it distracts by coming back on at almost anything. The heater/aircon controls are physical.
The ride is good for passengers and we found the seats comfortable. The driver has several blind spots, which means you’re dependent on the mirrors, cameras and sensors. They’re fine, the lines on the rear camera were trustable and the Lidar has a useful sensitivity but I’d still prefer to see directly. The front fender has a decent height for parking up to kerbs.
The drive of the Grande Panda LaPrima is adequate but not exciting. The engine rumbles at low revs and as usual, the gear-shift indication urges you to use low revs. The turbo kicks in and there’s a slight bit of oomph for overtakes. There’s no sport mode on the version we hired, the turbo is utilitarian. I suppose marginally less boring than a Dacia Duster or a Renault Captur. For this amount of luggage capacity and for touring, I would prefer to drive a Corsa or a Clio or a 208 for the less width, so less stress on narrower two-lane roads. But the fuel consumption of the Grande Panda LaPrima is pretty good, this one was returning 5.5 litres/100km overall over 1200 km, that’s 51.3 miles/UK gallon over 745 miles.