New Fiat Panda City Cross arrives, just in case a Panda Cross 4×4 is too extreme

The new Fiat Panda City Cross arrives as a FWD high-riding small urban warrior with the looks of the Cross 4X4 and a 1.2 litre engine. Costs from £12,995.

The Fiat Panda might not be the newest kid on the block, and it’s certainly not the quickest, but it still holds real appeal as a genuinely unpretentious little urban runaround.

And if you need a Fiat Panda that can actually do some genuine off-roading and deliver butch looks, then the enormously fun Panda Cross is there for the taking.

But, thought Fiat, what if we cross the regular Panda with the Panda Cross?

The result of that cogitation is this, the new Fiat Panda City Cross, a Panda Cross with the underpinnings of the regular Panda, so no 4×4 on offer for tackling the rough stuff.

But you do get an easy to love little Panda with much of the butch accoutrements of the proper Panda Cross, but with front-wheel drive and a 1.2 litre engine.

Unsurprisingly, that little 69bhp engine doesn’t make the City Cross particularly lively, with a very leisurely 0-62mph in 14.5 seconds. Which means you won’t often get to go that quickly, never mind on to the car’s 96mph top speed.

But worry not, because even with about as much get up and go as a moped, the little Fiat will still be fun to blat round town in and still make you smile.

So if the Panda Cross with its 4WD is too much of a stretch at £15,350, you can grab a City Cross, albeit without the appealing TwinAir engine and 4WD, from just £12,995.