If you were planning to drive a car to the base camp of Mt Everest, and be the first to reach this 5,200 metre site, the obvious choice would not be a little European family hatch powered by an equally tiny 1.3 litre diesel, even if it was the reigning European Car of the Year.

But that is exactly what Fiat recently did with the Panda, in its new 4x4 guise. Two Panda 4x4s started from Katmandu, Nepal, and covered 110 km of gravel roads to Kodari on the border with Tibet.

From this point on, for another 70 km, they used the rock strewn paths and tracks normally reserved for Sherpas and people trekking the Himalayas.

The Pandas climbed the five km-high Tangula pass to the monastery at Rongbuck. After a few more kilometers of extremely difficult terrain, the Pandas became the first small vehicles to reach the base camp.