Stylish good looks and a true off-road mechanical layout. This, to sum up, is the spirit of the new model that builds on the extraordinary success of the first Panda 4x4 while also setting out to become the benchmark in this particular market band due to its sophisticated style, carefully honed details and wealth of features.

The car therefore offers a four wheel drive system that engages automatically when the front wheels lose grip. This means that the car is suitable for all roads: it can be driven with ease over surfaces covered with snow, ice, mud and on unmade roads even when the slopes are steep.

The Panda 4x4 also offers a host of dynamic and comfort features that allow it to tackle long and demanding routes in comfort, due in particular to its suspension lay out and special tyres.

Four wheel drive

Four wheel drive (4WD) means that all four wheels are driven; offering the benefit that twice the torque of a two wheel drive (2WD) can be discharged to the ground, particularly on slippery surfaces.

In other words, the 4x4 transmission doubles the drive force discharged to the ground and means that the vehicle can overcome considerable differences in level or steep and difficult terrain while also propelling the vehicle forward if two drive wheels are not enough, e.g. over an icy or snow-covered road surface.

The configuration chosen for the Panda 4x4 is a four wheel drive transmission with two differentials and a viscous coupling. With this system, the four wheel drive is engaged automatically (i.e. without requiring any engagement by the driver) and allows outstanding drive torque distribution over the front and rear axle according to the road surface and vehicle application requirements.

For example, on asphalt roads with normal grip, 98% of the drive torque is directed to the front wheels so that the car can behave in a similar way to a front wheel drive vehicle with equally satisfying handling. It also prevents excessive fuel and tyre consumption due to small differences in rotating speed between the front and rear wheels.

If the road surface becomes slippery - and grip is reduced - the front drive wheels tend to skid but the viscous coupling immediately corrects this tendency by stiffening and progressively transmitting a rising drive torque percentage to the rear end to cancel out the skid.

This torque transfer is not perceptible to the driver except as an outstanding ability to get out of trouble, e.g. on snow-covered, icy or muddy surfaces.

The Fiat Panda 4x4 is also equipped with an antislip system that operates during deceleration by exploiting the potential of the ABS (i.e. making use of the sensors that record wheel rpm) and the electronic engine control system to prevent the engine braking torque and the viscous coupling from causing the rear end to lock during sudden decelerations on downhill slopes or on bends. Together with the four wheel drive system, this ensures great driving safety over slippery surfaces.

Lastly, the Panda 4x4 drive system makes full use of the viscous coupling that forms an integral part of the rear differential unit. The advantage of this configuration is that the drive system is engaged in a relatively immediate, automatic fashion to offer traction and effort when difficult road surface conditions make this necessary.

Now it is time to take a closer look at the way a viscous coupling works. The devices contain a set of perforated or slightly finned discs submerged in a viscous fluid with very specific properties: as the temperature rises, fluid viscosity increases.

When the two driven axles slip, they stir up this fluid and cause its temperature to rise. As soon as the temperature rises, the fluid becomes more viscous and tends to drag the discs together and transmit drive torque to the rear axle. This is a striking and clever piece of engineering because the oil acts as a sensor, i.e. it detects the presence of slip between the axles by its temperature - and also as an actuator because it tends to counteract the slipping effect by increasing its viscosity.

Front and rear suspension

The suspension system of a four wheel drive vehicle must meet two main requirements. Firstly, it must ensure passengers all the handling, roadholding and safety you would expect from 2WD vehicles, while secondly it must ensure greater pulling power over any route, particularly off-road routes.

To achieve both these aims, the engineers adjusted suspension parameters to offer absolutely outstanding performance with particular attention to off-road comfort and performance. Hence the choice of two efficient tried and tested layouts that work very effectively due to the attributes of the chassis.
On the front, an independent MacPherson configuration as adopted on the 2WD version with certain changes. For example, the dimensions of the shock absorbers are increased (bush rod 22 mm instead of 20 mm) to offer reliability and practicality even in the most demanding off-road missions. Compared to the Panda 2WD, the four wheel drive version offers special springs that add to the greater ground clearance so that the vehicle can ride easily over any route and ground surface.

The technical specifications of the Panda 2WD front suspension have been retained. The system therefore offers a torsion bar connected to the shock absorber by means of bars (until now a solution used only on higher segment cars).

In this case, the suspension ensures a greater ability to filter out vibrations due to driving over rough ground and has been improved by the adoption of: