Surprise! Fiat reveals five Panda concepts including a pickup and ‘MegaPanda’

It’s 2024, and all your city car heroes are [check notes] electric pick-ups and small SUVs? Yup, welcome to the Fiat Panda living its brand new, electrified life.

Except, it won’t just be electric. And it won’t just be one new Panda. Fiat has revealed no less than five new concept cars inspired by the hardy, indomitable original, each previewing a real production version that Fiat will reveal every year until 2027.

Indeed the first one will be unveiled in just four months’ time to coincide with Fiat’s 125th anniversary party. And it’ll be a toned-down, production version of the car you see above: the ‘City Car’.

It is built, in news that’ll surprise you further, for the city, based on a shared platform that’ll underpin all five cars. And Fiat is promising a mix of powertrains – electric, hybrid and internal combustion – along with sustainable materials and much space.

Which means the new Panda ‘City Car’ is bigger than the current car. Fiat itself refers to the new pup as a ‘MegaPanda’, which is, let’s be honest, a quite brilliant name for a new small-ish car.

We’re told its design was inspired by Fiat’s famous Lingotto building in Turin, so TopGear.com is extremely unimpressed it doesn’t feature flying Mini Coopers on the roof. However, there’s no denying the punchy, blocky new concept has more than a whiff of Panda 4x4 about its raised flanks.

Indeed it features a “high driving position”, recycled plastics and bamboo fabrics in its interior, a ‘self-winding’ charging cable and enough room inside for “family weekend trips and holidays”.

Panda Pickup

Though, if you want a holiday car, surely a Panda pickup truck is the way to go. Fiat notes how in South America, the Strada pickup sells rather well indeed, and so it reckons a car with a smaller ‘urban’ footprint would do just as well. Apparently, a tiny pickup is a response “to the global rediscovery of free time as a value for people”.

Panda Fastback

A Panda with ‘sporty flair’, apparently. The new Fastback concept is being aimed at Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, as a new version of the Tipo and current Fastback. Temper your excitement then, at Fiat’s mission statement for the new Fastback: “sustainable commitment without giving up on performance”.

Panda SUV

Though, if you do want to give up on performance, perhaps the new Panda SUV is more your thing. Fiat reckons it’s a sort of ‘GigaPanda’ – again, another great name which has to make it into the real world – and it promises all the things you’d expect from such a car.

Panda Camper

As does this final fifth Panda concept. The idea of a Fiat Panda campervan is really quite inspired, Fiat itself reckoning on the new concept “recalling the versatility of a car that was made for the city with the features of an SUV and the soul of a trusty companion”. Yeah, just sign us up already.