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Why I Like My Fiat Multipla
Looking like a distinctly avant garde cross
between a frog and a greenhouse you might wonder why anyone would want to
own a Fiat Multipla.
Normal these days is of course either a
house-sized two-box shed with seven seats and dirty boots, or an amorphous
piece of aero dynamism that you can actually "lose" in a
supermarket car park.
What a shock the Multipla is to them, and though
most will remain staunch middle-of-the-roaders about the Fiat and never
consider its function over its form, just as they did over the years with
the original Beetle, Citroen's DS and the Mini, there will be those who
will be converted. They are the ones who will actually try to use the car,
when six grown-up seats - each with full lap and diagonal belts - slip
into a road area not much larger than a Corolla's, start to make sense.
Once you've got them that far and have managed to
get hem to drive it, the car's ride, handling and verve - especially in
diesel form takes over from any reticence about looks. In fact, the very
disgust that most passers-by and other motorist's display in the presence
of the glassy Fiat are as positive a safety element as it's multiple
airbags and ABS.
As drivers flinch from the car as if it was
possessed of automotive strain of leprosy you get from your high and
mighty perch the impression that no one would ever run into you - not
while you look like that.
Even its Italian makers are not sure about the
Multipla. To the point that Fiat feels it is just a touch too avant-garde,
even for the sophisticated European market, in which during 2000 it sold
just 60,000 units. The far less spacious and innovative Renault Scenic and
Opel Zafira each managed several times that number. As a result, Fiat's
promised Ecobasic project car is to be refined down from its almost as
off-the-wall styling to something more hatch-like in its execution. Even
Fiat's new Stilo, to be revealed in Europe next month, will be a much less
polarising design than expected and almost generic in its look and
function.
Generic is a word normally missing from the
motor-noter's lexicon when it comes to describing Italian cars.
Its three-plus-three seating layout only partly
explains the wacky look, for the Multipla represents Fiat's first foray
into space frame technology. This is where a car is constructed from
separate sections of steel that form a base skeleton on to which the metal
and plastic cabin and body panels are attached. The method allows several
different car types to be constructed from a given base, drastically
reducing costs but at the same time increasing overall rigidity and making
the most of interior space.
Fiat is the first to admit the Multipla's looks
were deliberately accentuated with a double-deck effect and a low
waistline so that it would be an inescapable shop window for their new
technology.
And shop window is not a bad analogy, when you
not that the three-person shoulder width in the car is due to a large
extent to its deep vertical side glasses, which have an additional
advantage that they do not catch frost as readily as sloped panes and are
less likely to heat up the Multipla's interior in full sun.
There are larger six and seven seaters in the
market, but they either ask too much for the privilege or ownership or
give the final two passengers second-class citizenship in terms of seat
size. One European maker due to offer a seven seater in the MPV class
later this year offers just a pair of what look like upholstered lap-tops
for the third rowers.
All five of the other seats in the Multipla
perform the usual table or bed fold-over routine, but their complete
removal reveals a veritable cavern of space. This had the friendly
transfer station attendant scratching his head at the Fiat's ability to
accommodate almost a sedan and trailer's worth of garden rubbish without
it encroaching above headrest height.
The electric-blue seat trim looked and felt
pleasant enough, but the expanse of the same cloth that also covers those
parts of the fascia not occupied by the instruments and controls would be
a little overexposed under the huge deep windscreen to ultra-violet light.
I'd expect it to fade after a few years of New Zealand sunshine, but to be
fair; the six-month-old test car didn't show much evidence of
deterioration.
The grey plastic instrument cluster appears to
have suffered the same radiation mutating effects as the exterior. It
resembles a giant egg slicer, sprouting several buttons and switches, the
air conditioning and radio controls, as well as the gear lever. For all
that concentrations of functions it actually works very well, though the
radio volume button is a little far away and the shift lever does block
access to the aircon knobs.
The driving position is of the airship gondola
variety, and the world appears to pass the Fiat by, rather than the other
way around, as if on a giant screen backdrop. An added advantage of the
three-across seating is that the wheel at each corner had to have an extra
wide footprint. As a result, the Multipla revels in the cornering and
handling department.
There are few hatches of its engine size that
will stay with it on twisties, where the Multipla's panoramic view ahead
allows the driver to see far further than in more vertically-challenged
vehicles.
Even counting recent luxury Alfa offerings, the
Multipla is easily the best riding Italian car ever made. Though it can
impart a little bump-thump, it will dispatch road surface breaks with
non-chalance and comfort. One passenger remarked that it felt more like a
big German sedan when commuting rather than the world's cleverest people
carrier.
There's really no point opting for the1.6 litre
petrol engine, even if it is cheaper to buy. The 105 JTD 1.9L tubodiesel
four is not only amazingly frugal - 7.7 litres every 100km around town and
about 6.5 with an open road run or two. But demonstrably quicker and more
fun to drive. While the acceleration figures seem a tad average on paper,
the spec sheet fails to impart the sheer usability of the car's torque,
which whisks the Multipla past slower traffic in its mid-range, while
petrol car-drivers' hands are poised over the gear lever like
chocolate-box pickers trying to figure which ratio to use.
The engine is noisy at idle and takes a while to
warm up, but once with the sleep wiped from its eyes and its throat
cleared, it is as willing as a puppy. There's no doubt the Multipla takes
some getting used to, but on the day-to-day driving front, only the
absence of power side mirrors and the use of a right-hand handbrake (to
leave the floor clear) come to mind. Other people's opinions will be fun
to fend, and you'll no doubt have even more fun thinks of things to say
about their bland, unimaginative taste in cars.
If you have a small business and need a company
workhorse that has to double as a family holdall, then you could do a lot
worse than painting your logo on the side of this Fiat... no one would
ever miss it!
And if the neighbours get really boring about
your "ugly" Fiat, you can always tell them to go forth and
Multipla!
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