OVER the years I've driven dozens of off-road motors but never something as small as the new Fiat Panda Cross.

Could it be any good? The answer is yes.

OK, it's not a Discovery, Shogun or Jeep Cherokee, but for a car which will be used mainly on the road it is surprisingly capable.

It's based on the existing Panda 4x4 but has greater ground clearance at 161mm, has added front rear, underside and side protection and will tackle pretty serious rough conditions.

And its rugged good looks should make it an attractive option in the small SUV sector for those looking for something just a little but different.

The front end is dominated by a chunky new bumper and a large skidplate finished in silver with tow-hooks.  New LED daytime running lights located in protective recesses. The new head-light clusters are framed with matte black surrounds and have frog-eye styled new fog lights

It's not just the outside that is appealing. Fiat has given the Panda Cross a make-over compared with the normal Panda, with very supportive new sports seats, a copper-coloured dashboard and silver surrounds on the instrument panels.

The Cross comes with climate control, a CD player with MP3, leather steering wheel and Bluetooth connectivity as standard.

It also has attractive 15-inch alloys which come with all-season mud and snow tyres. But I found these were inclined to produce more road noise than I'd like.

Two engines are available when the Panda Cross goes on sale in the UK in September, a 1.3-litre MultiJet turbo-diesel with 80bhp and a 0.9-litre 90bhp TwinAir turbo-petrol.

Fiat claims the oil-burner will return around 60mpg on a combined run and the petrol version 57.6mpg.

The diesel Cross has a five-speed box and the petrol version offers six. I only drove the diesel and found the gear-change slick and positive.

On the Tarmac it bowls along with zippy performance with a top speed of 99mph and a 0-62mph sprint time of 14 seconds, although because of its small size it seemed faster.

As with most off-roaders the Cross will probably not get its tyres muddied up by its owners, but it you do need a go-anywhere little SUV then I can assure you it is very capable off the beaten track.

On Fiat's main vehicle test centre at Balocco, near Milan, I put the little SUV 4x4 through a pretty tough test on steep hill-climbs, severe adverse cambers, rock-strewn forest tracks and water troughs.

I was very impressed with its performance.

The Panda Cross employs Terrain Control, which at the twist of knob adjusts the driving mode to Auto, Off-Road or Hill Descent Control.

In Auto, in normal on-road driving, the Cross is driven at 98 per cent by the front wheels, but automatically switches to 4x4 if there is serious loss of traction.

Off-Road, as you'd expect, gives permanent 4x4 operation, and the Hill Descent is used for serious downhill mud-plugging automatically slowing the Cross to a crawl on steep drops.

On-road the ride is comfortable with good suppression of engine and wind noise, but as I said there's a little more road noise than usual due to the all-season tyres.

It corners well with just a hint of roll if you push it into fast, tight bends but overall it handles well.

The petrol version of the Panda Cross will set you back £15,945 and the diesel an additional £1,000.

All in all, an attractive, practical and good looking little motor which has the added ability if you do want to be adventurous and take on the rough stuff.