More Bears: Inexpensive Fiat Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback Crossovers Prepare for Premiere

Italian brand Fiat, part of the Stellantis corporation, has announced that the premiere of the Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback crossovers will take place in October at the Paris Motor Show, with sales in Europe set to begin before the end of the year.

The official announcement of the Fiat Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback was made in early June; these two compact crossovers are intended to replace the recently discontinued Tipo model on the market. The precursors to the Grizzly and Fiat Grizzly Fastback were angular concepts shown in February 2024: at the time, it was assumed they would become part of the Panda family, but the strategy later changed, and the production models were given a different surname, also bear-related — Grizzly. The stylistic kinship between the Grizzly and the Grande Panda cross-hatchback is obvious — the same pixels and edges, only configured slightly differently.

On 11 July, the Fiat brand celebrated its 127th anniversary and on that day published new photos of the Grizzly and Fiat Grizzly Fastback, a promotional video featuring Olivier François (CEO of Fiat), and announced that the full premiere of these crossovers would take place at the Paris Motor Show. The Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback are global models: in addition to Europe, they will appear in countries across South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

The Fiat Grizzly (4.5 metres long) and Grizzly Fastback (4.6 metres long) are built on the Smart Car platform (a simplified version of the modular CMP platform), which previously underpinned the new Citroën C3 and C3 Aircross, Citroën Basalt, Opel Frontera, and the aforementioned Fiat Grande Panda. The Fiat Grizzly is a direct counterpart to the Citroën C3 Aircross and Opel Frontera, while the Grizzly Fastback represents a more angular variant of the Citroën Basalt.

Among the new photos are teasers of the interior, from which it can be deduced that the dashboard of the Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback will be more angular than that of the Grande Panda, and between the front seats there will be a two-tier central tunnel with a compartment for bags on the lower level. The Fastback, which is actually a liftback, boasts a substantial boot capacity of 600 litres.

No technical innovations are to be expected from the Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback: they will feature the same set of petrol, hybrid, and electric powertrains available in their platform siblings. As standard, the Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback will likely come with a 1.2-litre petrol turbocharged three-cylinder engine producing 100 hp, paired with a manual gearbox, while the most expensive versions will receive a 145 hp hybrid powertrain based on the same petrol engine, supplemented by an electric motor integrated into a six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox. Whether all-wheel-drive versions will be available is not yet known, but in theory they are possible, as it is known that the Fiat Grande Panda will gain a 4x4 version next year.

In the European market, the Fiat Grizzly and Grizzly Fastback will compete with the Dacia Duster and Bigster duo. Or rather, they will attempt to compete, provided the base price is below €25,000. Overall, Fiat's sales in Europe are growing this year: according to ACEA, 161,716 cars were sold in the first five months, an increase of 27.6% compared to January–May 2025.