This twin test has been inspired partly by circumstances and partly from curiosity. Many of you will recognise the Fiat Panda because this was the car we rescued and restored over many months, the work being detailed from the October 2021 issue until the May 2022 one. Since then it has made occasional appearances in the Driver Diaries, and only recently (and shortly after this photoshoot) has it been sold on to a new owner.
Those who have been following its progress in the magazine will know that it has been insured for my three kids to drive, and their collective trips have included blasts from our south Lincolnshire base to Glasgow and to Nottingham. That is my daughter Megan who is pictured with the Panda, and who is going to be driving both cars today.
The other car is of course a Fiat 500, not the original Dante Giacosa masterpiece which was current from 1957-1975, but the equally brilliant reimagining of that theme introduced in 2007 and still being churned out in Tychy, Poland for eager buyers around the world. The one we have for our photoshoot is a 2011 model, so considerably newer than most of the cars we feature in Classics Monthly, but one which could very well qualify for a guest appearance in the Emerging Classic slot. I also have no doubt that it will become a staple of the evolving classic scene in years to come as people succumb to the pull of nostalgia and seek to revisit the fun they had with their first car.
Who knows, that may well end up being true for Millie Hill who owns the Fiat 500 in our pictures, because that is indeed her first car. Millie also happens to be Megan's oldest friend, the two of them having met at nursery school, which is
