I’ve always liked the Fiat Panda. It’s one of those fiercely honest cars that was designed not around some vague ideas a marketing team came up with about some fictional go-getter, but rather around a specific set of jobs they want the car to be able to perform. The panda was a clever little box on wheels, smart and unashamed and elegant in its simplicity. Fun, too. But I was never sure I really understood why it was called a “Panda.”
I mean, pandas, cute as they are, are kind of idiots. They roll around and eat a ton of bamboo and are shockingly bad at fucking each other to make new pandas. Unlike the Fiat Panda, nature-built pandas aren’t especially useful or utilitarian or capable or efficient or anything like that. They’re big, lazy, bamboo-gorged shlubs that don’t do shit.
It’s not just me who thinks so, too:
The only trait a panda really shares with a Fiat Panda is cuteness, I suppose, and even then the type of cuteness is wildly different between the machine and the beast.
So why did Fiat name their rugged little car after these dipshit not-bears?
Well, the truth is that Fiat didn’t name the Panda after pandas! It’s actually named for, of all things, a goddess.
Yes, a goddess! The ancient Roman goddess Empanda, which I desperately want to read as “empanada” but is really just Empanda, or, sometimes, Panda. Empanda was a patroness of travelers, which is why Fiat picked her to name their little car after.
While I’m sure there are those of you reading this who knew this already, I wonder how Fiat feels knowing that the vast majority of people have the entirely wrong idea about what or who the car is named for.
A goddess! I had no idea. I’m just happy it’s not named for those black-and-white doughy, bamboo-gorged furry jackasses.
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