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Fiat has pulled the wraps off its new Grizzly – a larger version of the Grande Panda aimed to give it a footing in Europe's crucial C-segment – after first showing it in parent company Stellantis' recent strategy update.

It will go on sale later this year with two bodystyles: a straight-edged SUV and a more rakish Fastback. It's an affordable family crossover "designed for the three regions" Fiat sells in, according to CEO Olivier François: Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa.

It "completes the Panda and Grande Panda families", he said, "but it's a different animal" that is intended to bolster Fiat's "revenue, margins and brand". 

As a bigger sibling to the Grande Panda, it will be built on Stellantis's value-oriented Smart Car platform, which also underpins the similarly positioned Citroën C3 Aircross and Vauxhall Frontera.

The Grizzly is believed to be slightly larger than its siblings, however: Fiat said it's "under 4.5m" long, while the C3 Aircross and Frontera are just under 4.4m long.

It will be offered with the same choice of petrol, hybrid and electric powertrains as the Grande Panda.

The Grizzly forms part of a wave of new Fiat products aimed at bolstering the Italian brand's coverage of the affordable car market and attracting new buyers. 

Also on the way is a new four-seat microcar (pictured below in green) to sit above the Citroën Ami-based Topolino and a new electric city car inspired by the original 1980s Panda.

This new sub-£15k entry EV will be produced at Stellantis's Pomigliano plant in Italy alongside a reborn Citroën 2CV, taking heavy design influence from its 1940s forebear.

Unlike Citroën, Fiat didn't go so far as to preview the design of its new entry EV, but François promised that "the real design is not the revival of an icon, it is literally the next icon".

Autocar is delighted to announce the return of Siemens as our partner for the 2026 Autocar Awards, continuing a highly successful collaboration that began last year.

The partnership unites the world’s oldest automotive publication with a global leader in industrial software, automation, infrastructure and digital transformation. Together, we will celebrate the finest cars and the visionary industry leaders shaping the automotive industry.

"We are thrilled to welcome Siemens back as our Partner for the 2026 Autocar Awards," said Mark Tisshaw, editor of Autocar. "Last year's partnership was a tremendous success, highlighting the shared values we have dedicated to excellence and innovation in the automotive industry.

"The Autocar Awards are unique in not just celebrating the great cars but the great people who have helped make them. We're delighted to be able to do that alongside Siemens once more."

The winners of the 2026 Autocar Awards will be announced on Wednesday 10 June across all of our print and digital channels. An awards ceremony to honour our winners in person will take place on the evening of 9 June in central London.

Uday Senapati, global head of automotive, Siemens, said: “We’re proud to partner with Autocar again to celebrate an industry that continues to push the boundaries of innovation.

"From software and AI to advanced engineering, the automotive industry is evolving at pace and the highly skilled people across the sector are at the heart of this transformation. The Autocar Awards are a powerful way to recognise that talent and the role it plays in shaping the future of mobility.”

Key people awards include the Issigonis Trophy, which will be handed out to the industry's highest achiever, and our lead innovation award, the Sturmey Award. Other people awards will go the leading designer and engineer for the year and to the industry's outstanding leaders, both in the UK and globally.

Car trophies include those that go to the recipients of a coveted Autocar Five-Star road test verdict and to our Britain's Best Cars award winners.

Westfield, the sports and kit car manufacturer founded in the Midlands 44 years ago as a rival to Caterham, has been sold to a Dutch-German company after going into voluntary liquidation.

Driving-Fun, one of Europe’s largest track day organisers, plans to continue building existing Westfield models and develop new road and racing models for what it sees as a strong and active body of enthusiasts.

Since its formation in 1982, Westfield is estimated to have put around 16,000 cars on the road.

Its new ownerm Dutch-born Peter Tunissen, founded Driving-Fun from scratch 20 years ago instead of going to university like his friends. Today, his company stages more than 100 track days per year, owns two hotels at the Nürburgring and has its headquarters at a track of its own, Circuit Meppen, located about three hours east of Amsterdam, just over the German border in Lower Saxony.

Circuit Meppen is located the grounds of a former power station, where Driving-Fun already has a 10,000sq ft factory that Tunissen believes will be ideal for the continuing manufacture of Westfield cars and kits, as well as the spare parts that he already knows are urgently needed by existing owners.

Tunissen said his deal extends only to the Westfield side of the failed UK business. The Chesil side, set up to manufacture Porsche 356 replicas, remains unsold, although the UK vendors say “conversations” are currently under way with potential buyers.

Westfield’s former boss, Nigel Trilk, said he knows Driving-Fun and Tunissen well from previous contacts and believes he is “a very positive person with great vision”.

Tunissen made clear that the Westfield acquisition “is definitely not just a routine business decision”. For years he admired the British-built cars’ combination of high performance and affordability and eventually decided to join the Netherlands’ thriving Westfield Cup racing series, which has been popular for decades and, unlike many series, survived the Covid pandemic in a healthy state.

Today, Tunissen uses Westfields for arrive-and-drive customers at Driving-Fun, as well as running more serious race cars. He estimates that there are around 60 race-eligible cars in the Netherlands alone, plus 300 road cars in the country's thriving Westfield Club.

However, he is acutely aware of the concerns of the UK’s much larger Westfield community, spearheaded by its “amazing” Westfield Sports Car Club.

Although it's less than a month since he started discussing a deal, Tunissen is already talking to two Westfield-literate UK businesses and will soon choose one to become the company’s hub in this country.

The ambition, he said, is to make increasingly rare spares freely available as soon as possible and to contain costs that might otherwise become inflated by uncontrolled EU importation costs.

For the future, Tunissen and Driving-Fun intend to have their new manufacturing facility running as soon as possible and to develop the cars along racing lines to suit customers’ well-communicated desires.

The previous owners recognised that too but never quite managed to get a range of well-developed models to market.

Tunissen is likely to benefit from some of that previous product development work, which ran to “several millions” of investment in chassis and engine development.

In the meantime, to signal his ambition and good intentions, Tunissen is planning a Europe-wide Westfield owners’ jamboree at Circuit Meppen on 21-23 August, hoping especially to attract many UK visitors.

He said he will work at top speed in the meantime “to have something good to show our visitors.”

More details will soon be available via a new website, but Tunissen invites all enquirers to contact him via westfieldsportscars@circuitmeppen.com in the meantime.

Westfield's history

Westfield was established in 1982 by engineer, racer and Lotus enthusiast Chris Smith, who named both the new business and its cars after his house in Dudley, just west of Birmingham.

He started making fibreglass-bodied, selectively re-engineered versions of the Lotus Seven and Lotus XI but within a few years ran into legal trouble with Caterham, whose owner Graham Nearn had bought rights to the Seven directly from Lotus founder Colin Chapman.

The Westfield Seven’s shape was altered to the court's satisfaction and it became the Westfield SE, the company’s most successful model, which until recently was still in production.

In 2007, Smith sold the Westfield business to Frank Turner, a former director of Lucas Aerospace, who with his son Julian turned it to engineering projects as well as continuing car making.

Under the Turners, Westfield built the famous autonomous passenger pods at Heathrow Airport, then acquired Chesil before hitting the buffers in 2022.

The third British ownership, voluntarily terminated when a key investor recently and abruptly withdrew, lasted only four years before Peter Tunissen's Driving-Fun took over this month.