Fiat Panda City Cross

About this car

This is a 2017 Fiat Panda City Cross in red, a five-door hatchback with the 1.2-litre petrol engine and a manual gearbox, showing 64,500 miles. The City Cross version of the Panda is the one with the chunkier, more rugged look — raised ride height, protective body cladding and a slightly adventurous stance — but underneath it's the same friendly, upright little city car the Panda has always been, which is a large part of its charm. For something so compact on the outside, the Panda is remarkably clever with space. The tall roofline and high seating position mean good headroom and a commanding view out, and five doors make a real difference day to day: rear passengers get their own access, and fitting a child seat is far easier than wrestling it through a three-door. It works well as a second family car, a school-run and shopping car, or a sensible first car for a new driver, with a boot that's modest but a usefully square shape for the weekly shop or a pushchair, and rear seats that fold when you need to carry more. The 1.2-litre petrol is a simple, long-serving Fiat engine with a reputation for being straightforward and inexpensive to look after. It isn't fast, and it likes to be revved a little when you're joining a dual carriageway, but it suits the car's character and is genuinely economical in the sort of town and suburban driving most Pandas do. Servicing, tyres and consumables for a car of this size are typically among the cheaper end of things, and the manual gearbox keeps the mechanicals nice and uncomplicated. On safety, we'd rather be straight with you: this generation of Panda scored four stars when Euro NCAP tested it in 2011, but when the model was re-tested in 2018 against far tougher criteria — which place heavy weight on active systems such as autonomous emergency braking and lane assistance — it scored zero stars. The core structure and airbags are unchanged; what it lacks is the modern driver-assistance technology that newer small cars now carry. If those systems matter to you, it's worth knowing before you come and look. To drive, the Panda is light, easy and surprisingly good fun in the places it's designed for. The steering is feather-light at parking speeds, visibility is excellent thanks to the big glass area and square corners, and the turning circle makes tight multi-storeys and narrow streets a non-event. The raised City Cross suspension gives it a softer, more absorbent feel over broken urban roads, at the cost of a little lean through faster bends — a trade most owners are happy with. This Panda has been prepared and checked by Tico Motors, and we're happy to go through everything we know about it with you in person.