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"It&amp;#039;s hard to explain what it is about crap European cars that really gets me excited. On paper, this little Fiat is a dud. It&amp;#039;s 69 hp from an anemic, wheezing engine from Italy&amp;#039;s motoring dark ages (the 1980s), wrapped up in a stunted wagon-SUV thing. It&amp;#039;s not sporty, nor does it pretend to be, but it is a blast to drive. Even in Michigan with our Afghanistan-grade roads and typically American wide-open spaces, I couldn&amp;#039;t help but wish there were a few less CUVs on the road and more of these. Beyond carrying five people and luggage for a 700-mile trek, I can&amp;#039;t really think of something the Panda won&amp;#039;t do well. It&amp;#039;s got plenty of space for a Costco run or to take a couple of kids to soccer practice, just maybe not in the same trip. And it sips gas by our standards, even though it&amp;#039;s a bit of a guzzler by European metrics. It goes to show how economy cars (and there&amp;#039;s really no other way to describe it, as unabashedly inexpensive as it is) can be both useful and fun. Fun? Well, yes. The engine makes no power at all. None. And it seems to make negative power above 4000 rpm. It quickly becomes obvious that further application of the throttle is a fruitless endeavor.  So, shift a cog instead. The gearbox is brilliant for a car like the Panda. Throws are finger-light, the clutch is simple to use, and there&amp;#039;s no engagement ambiguity. There&amp;#039;s just big, fat, soft travel that makes it easy to drive smoothly. Make no mistake, it&amp;#039;s not a Miata&amp;#039;s slick box, but it&amp;#039;s one of those intuitive transmissions that make stop-and-go traffic no chore at all. Suspension is likewise brilliant, if simple. Rough roads will buck you around in that strangely European way. It&amp;#039;s clear you&amp;#039;re being jostled, but it&amp;#039;s not very punishing. And this compromise between dampening and springing makes each roundabout a bit like an autocross stage. It was the rare exit where I didn&amp;#039;t get a bit of tire squeal as the low-grip shoes protested the weight transfer as I chucked the wheel over. Pure, simple, low-velocity fun. Limits are low and easily reached, but fun to explore. You don&amp;#039;t have to do superhuman velocities to achieve them.  I also love the squared-off shifter sprouting from the dashboard. It&amp;#039;s just tacky-chic enough to be fun, almost retro in design, and ergonomically excellent. Same with the similarly squared-off gauges, which are a little more retro than the shifter. They&amp;#039;re also easy to read. If there&amp;#039;s any place where the Panda falls flat, it&amp;#039;s the styling. If you told me it was a rejected SsangYong design, I wouldn&amp;#039;t be surprised. Americans often think of Italy as a place of rarified styling and design, but the country has its ugly industrial areas just like everywhere else. Sometimes the Italians make a Miura, and sometimes they design a funky little runt that&amp;#039;s not very charismatic. At least it&amp;#039;s not offensive. It&amp;#039;s just not very endearing. That doesn&amp;#039;t stop me from wanting one.  In Italy, a Panda in this configuration (which is pretty well stripped-down) starts around $13,700. Let&amp;#039;s assume that European cars have a roughly 30% MSRP premium over similarly equipped USDM cars of the same model. That would put the Panda just under $10,000, which is right in line with its perceived value. And man, at that price, it would be a steal. Of course, even if Americans would line up 12 deep to fork over their hard-earned cashola for the privilege of puttering about in a Panda, you know some bigwig in a suit at the Fiat-Chrysler syndicate would put a stopper on it. Something about tiny cars with modest outputs and good suspension being improper, perhaps indecent, for our market. What&amp;#039;s indecent is how a tiny, ugly, underpowered car manages to be so much fun. There&amp;#039;s something to keeping things small, isn&amp;#039;t there? 2013 Fiat Panda  Powertrains: : 1.2 liter I-4 Fire 8v, 69-hp, 5-speed manual, FWD  FUEL ECONOMY:: apx 45.2 (mpg (mfg))  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/first-drives/reviews/a5029/performance-tests-first-drives-2013-fiat-panda/>