The Fiat Panda is a city car manufactured and marketed by Fiat. The first generation Panda, introduced in 1980, was a two-box, three-door hatchback designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani of Italdesign and was manufactured through 2003 — receiving an all-wheel drive variant in 1983. SEAT of Spain marketed a variation of the first generation Panda under license to Fiat, initially as the Panda and subsequently as the Marbella (1986–1998).

The second-generation Panda, launched in 2003 as a 5-door hatchback, was designed by Giuliano Biasio of Bertone, and won the European Car of the Year in 2004. The third-generation Panda debuted at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2011, was designed at Fiat Centro Stilo under the direction of Roberto Giolito and remains in production in Italy at Pomigliano d'Arco. The fourth-generation Panda is marketed as the Grande Panda, to differentiate it from the third generation that is sold alongside it. Developed under Stellantis, the Grande Panda is produced in Serbia.

In 40 years, Panda production has reached over 7.8 million, of those, approximately 4.5 million were the first generation. In early 2020, its 23-year production was counted as the twenty-ninth most long-lived single generation car in history by Autocar. During its initial design phase, Italdesign referred to the car as il Zero. Fiat later proposed the name Rustica. Ultimately, the Panda was named after Empanda, the Roman goddess and patroness of travelers.

Introduced at the March 1980 Geneva Motor Show, the Panda was internally designated as Type 141 and was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani of the newly formed Italdesign. From its inception, the Panda was designed as an inexpensive, easily maintained, utilitarian, and robustly simple car. Introduced to the press in December 1979; the first generation went on sale in Italy in late February, ahead of its Geneva première. Fiat launched right-hand drive models for the UK market in May 1981.

As the first time Fiat had entrusted the development of a high-volume model to an outside company, Giugiaro and Mantovani spent 15 days in the summer of 1976 in Porto Cervo, Sardinia designing the Panda — using the working name Zero. Giugiaro developed the packaging and styling; Mantovani conceived the car's technical approach.

Fiat CEO Carlo De Benedetti's design brief specified a straightforward 'container' with a spacious and spartan interior, weighing and costing no more than the Fiat 126 it was replacing — and having a similar design approach as the Citroën 2CV or Renault 4. Notably, in the late 1950s, the head of Renault, Pierre Dreyfus, had called for the Renault R4 to have an egalitarian approach, like blue jeans, "which people can wear in any situation if you do away with the pretension of snobbism and social conformity."

During the design gestation, Giugiaro took particular inspiration from a folding lounge chair in conceiving the seats of the Zero; simple, easy to maintain, modular, inexpensive to manufacture. To ensure its practicality, he conceived that the Panda's cargo area should accommodate no less than two 50-liter wine demijohns, along with a full complement of passengers. From its inception, the project would use monocoque construction with a nearly flat floor and a sufficiently high roof to accommodate upright seating.

Giugiaro and Mantovani completed the design for its 7 August deadline, discovering only then that De Benedetti had left Fiat.