How he found the time and creative energy to design cars for just about every Italian manufacturer, Ferrari and Lamborghini included, I’ll never know. Additionally, along with most German makers, several leading vehicle producers in America, the Czech Republic, France, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the UK also called him in to shape production or concept cars, trucks and motorcycles for them. Exactly how many vehicles he designed is far from clear. I identified around 150 before I gave up counting.
Unquestionably, Giorgetto Giugiaro is the world’s greatest current car designer. Arguably, the Panda is among his finest, most accessible and compelling works. Probably the closest thing we’ve had to a car for the people since the original Beetle.
As for that humble, accessible, no-frills Panda range that he conceived 50 years ago this week and is expected to remain in production for many years to come, I’ll say only this: it has already enjoyed an impressively lengthy, uninterrupted run stretching from 1976 to 2026. With that and its other qualities in mind, the Fiat Panda/Grande Panda is, in its numerous past and present guises, THE car of the past half century.
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