Fiat’s New Panda 4×4 May Preview Future Small Jeep [2012 Paris Auto Show]

Slotted beneath the replacement for the fulsome Compass and Patriot, Jeep will offer an Italian-built, Fiat-based baby ute. Not an appealing proposition for America's off-roadiest brand, right? On the contrary, friends. The Panda 4×4, which Fiat introduced this week at the Paris auto show, is the probable starting point for the B-segment Jeep we'll get here. Read on to find out why that's great news. Fiat's Panda itself is an outstanding little car, squirting around cities as a small Italian should. It's well-built, reliable, surprisingly refined, practical, and fun. James May uses one as his daily driver. "All well and good," you say, "but this is supposed to be a Jeep. Ya know, driving over mud-covered rocks, or through rock-covered mud?" As it happens, Fiat has been building four-wheel-drive Pandas for almost 30 years. Short wheelbases and robust drive systems make them competent go-anywhere cars. Comparison Test: 2013 Dodge Dart Rallye vs. 2012 Ford Focus SE Comparison Test: Fiat 500 Abarth vs. Mini John Cooper Works Comparison Test: Nissan Juke vs. Mini Countryman and Jeep Compass The first Panda 4x4s used four-wheel-drive systems developed entirely by Steyr, the Austrian company whose résumé includes the Pinzgauer and the Geländewagen for Mercedes-Benz. The last Panda 4×4 was seriously good on rough stuff, too; it used a rear-mounted viscous coupling and was available with a manually lockable differential. The brand-new Panda 4×4 has what Fiat calls permanent four-wheel drive, with a computer controlling the coupling and electronic locking differential. Although this would carry over to the smallest Jeep, the Fiat's two tiny engines—a two-cylinder gasoline unit and a four-cylinder diesel—wouldn't. We'd get a small four-cylinder gasoline engine like the 1.4-liter four from the 500, possibly in 135-hp turbo form. Sales for the Panda 4×4 start soon, but the baby Jeep is still a good ways from entering production in Italy. And after having said all of this, there's still a small chance Fiat may even make a sharp turn and base the B-segment Jeep on a scaled-down Dart platform or a different Fiat model. We hope that doesn't happen; check out this video of early Panda 4x4s and bask in their pebble-crushing prowess: Read full story » from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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