Project Fiat Panda 1.4 100HP
PART FOUR: Our 2008 Panda 100HP is basically a wreck bodywise – it’ll never be a minter, but we can at least tidy it up. Andrew Everett starts on the most difficult part of this project.
This episode of our Panda 100HP restoration job is going to be a short one, only because we haven’t made as much progress with the bodywork as we had hoped. When the car was dropped off to Body Motor Works in Chesterfield, an order was put in for a new rear bumper as ours was smashed beyond any kind of economical repair. A crack in a bumper can be fixed but ours was shattered and repair would have probably exceeded the new cost of a whopping £313 – awaste of time then.
Then after a week or so the news came back to us that even though Fiat could give us a price for a new bumper, they had already been discontinued and there were none left anywhere. Fiat and Alfa have always been bad for this along with many other manufacturers. There is the oft quoted ten-year rule for car parts supply but that’s not law – Fiat can still supply essential bits of course up to a point but they and other manufacturers – Ford is another one – take the view that the aftermarket can deal with all those pesky owners of old cars once they’ve sold the rights for parts remanufacture. A shortsighted view perhaps but hey. And no, none of the aftermarket companies make the unique 100HP rear bumper. Brilliant.
Finding 100HP bumpers
We tried everywhere for a used one and were considering getting a cheap used standard Panda rear bumper, cutting it about and grafting on the black trim bits – but luckily, I found a used 100HP rear bumper in grey metallic on eBay – and it was only £60. A shame it was hundreds of miles away with a round trip to Suffolk, but I clicked ‘buy it now’ in order to own it and we’d worry about logistics later. As it happens, a mate was passing that way three days later and as a result, we have a slightly secondhand looking, yet undamaged bumper.
To try and keep costs down I also did an aerosol can restoration job on the driver’s side lacquer peel which has been quite successful along with the door handles and the boot handle which was slightly less so. Even so, it avoids us professionally painting the driver’s side of the car.
REAR BUMPER REMOVAL
1 Start this job off by removing the row of T25 Torx screws that secure the rear bumper cover to the edge of the tailgate slam panel. A couple of them were very rusty and needed a bigger spline drive hammering in – I obtained a few nice clean replacement ones from a scrapyard Panda.
2 With the back of the car jacked up and the rear wheels removed, it was very easy to locate and remove the cross-headed self-tapping screws that secure the Panda 100HP rear bumper outer plastic spats to the rear arch liner – you’ll find a similar set up on the
