ONE VERY COOL part of my job with DoneDeal Cars is trying out new vehicles, and we have around 6,500 of them on the website.

But none of that is worth a damn to you readers unless I stick my neck out and tell you which ones, from the arrivals in 2026, that I have liked the most.

So, this week and next, I will talk you through some of the highlights of the cars I have driven when it comes to new cars, starting with the smaller, more affordable ones, and next week we can get a little sillier.

These are cars that have arrived in 2026 new to the market, not necessarily the best cars out there. We can chat about that another day. 

The Fiat Grande Panda

Irish people have a love/hate relationship with the Fiat brand.

Mostly hate probably, but the days of truly awful Fiats are very much ancient history, and they are now part of the giant Stellantis Group, which has Citroën, Peugeot, and various other brands, so the days of Fiats that were as reliable as a Temu defibrillator are well and truly gone.

Even in Fiat’s less-than-sterling days, the Panda was a good-value, no-nonsense, and utterly charming little runaround. Fast forward to 2026, and a new Grande Panda has arrived (yes, as the name suggests, it’s not that small), and while dwarfing the........

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