My MK1.5 2000 Fiat Panda

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Giggig
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2025 7:15 pm
Location: Italy

My MK1.5 2000 Fiat Panda

Post by Giggig »

This will be probably one of the oldest designed cars in this forum, since my 2000 model year has very little changed compared to the first 1980 model year. This means that this car originally didn't come with any radio and speaker system whatsoever, it's as utilitarian as the cheapest car in Italy in 1980 could be.
There were some models which included a radio from the factory, so every Panda that didn't have a radio by default had just 2 cables, positive and negative tucked into the dash that could be used to power the radio. It didn't come with any speakers, those had to be sourced separately.
I've already designed a head unit last year which ran Openauto Pro and then OpenDash when OAP sadly stopped working, but I wasn't totally happy with the design since it was one of my first complete assemblies i've done in CAD.
Fast forward to last month and I discovered the Hudiy project almost by accident and I was immediately hooked, it followed the footsteps that OAP laid down and it had a UI that was miles better than what OpenDash could offer, honestly, props to the developer for making this, and also for being helpful when issues arose.
Since I had to take the head unit out of the car I decided to completely redesign everything from scratch, after learning more about CAD design in engineering school during the past year I felt way more confortable designing the new head unit.
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The head unit now neatly slots into a custom made bezel that mimics the original one Fiat used to sell to anyone who wanted a radio in their Panda.
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Since the previous version didn't have any physical buttons I decided to recycle a little 3 key programmable keypad I had laying around and designed a shell to integrate it into the head unit, I especially like the custom backlit buttons I made.
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In the future I would like to also connect a CarLink adapter so that my friends with Iphones can also connect to my car, I would have loved to have it also display some info from the ECU but sadly this ECU predates the OBD II standard, so i'm not holding my breath on seeing this done anytime soon unfortunetely.
I again have to thank the developer for making this project. Even if it's still in its infancy it already feels quite well refined and also in the new update Android Auto has never felt so smooth and responsive!
Luchino95
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2025 8:36 pm

Re: My MK1.5 2000 Fiat Panda

Post by Luchino95 »

Good work really nice and beautiful , the design is awesome!
Sei italiano?
Giggig
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2025 7:15 pm
Location: Italy

Re: My MK1.5 2000 Fiat Panda

Post by Giggig »

Si sono italiano, grazie per i complimenti!
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