Rally specialists at M-Sport have presented the first creation of their new department, MS-SV. The acronym is short for M-Sport Special Vehicles, and the creation in question is called Pandamonium. It is, in fact, a Fiat Panda that has received a thorough restomod.
The idea here is that M-Sport has a new division out there, which can put the company's expertise into one-off projects such as this one. Moreover, the division can go the extra mile and provide carefully crafted details, such as this Panda's trunk cap, which was stamped on the new panel in the original font as a nod to the retro model.
As you will observe in the video below, there is not much of the Fiat Panda left in the vehicle after M-Sport was done with it. Instead, it comes with the mechanical and electrical parts of a Ford Fiesta R5, including a modified 1.6-liter EcoBoost engine that develops around 300 horsepower and 332 lb.-ft. (ca. 450 Nm) of torque.
The resulting Panda 4x4, as the Fiesta R5 donor, channels the resources to all four wheels through a sequential five-speed gearbox. As you can imagine, this was not a simple engine and transmission swap, as the company had to significantly increase the width of the body shell to accommodate the components from a modern rally car.
M-Sport also grafted the suspension, roll cage, steering system, differentials, driveshafts, and everything else that makes a Ford Fiesta R5 work to enable the Pandamonium to exist. We must also note the set of wheel arches that have been tastefully adapted to the design of the Fiat Panda.
The British WRC specialist has not published a price for such a conversion, but you can be sure it will be more expensive than just adding the price of a Fiesta R5 and an old Fiat Panda. The amount of work that goes into such a creation is immense, so expect such a conversion to be expensive.
To this day, M-Sport has made 294 Fiesta R5 Mk1 models, which have accumulated a total of 953 rally victories to date. Expect the figure to rise, as the model first launched in 2013 is still in competition use in numerous countries.
All we know is that it looks cool, and we hope to see it being driven this way in future events as a demonstration vehicle for the company's Special Vehicles department.
Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland. Full profile
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