Welcome back to The Carchive, the (Exclusive to Hooniverse) series where we explore the footnotes of automotive history as defined by the literature of their makers; and pronounce both the product and the pamphlet either excellent or execrable.

Recently we’ve been sticking with the relatively recent past, and so it is today. We’re looking at a car which managed to answer a whole load of practical questions at the same time as posing a multitude of aesthetic ones. It’s the 1999 Fiat Multipla.

“Anyone with an eye for design flair and true originality will be able to see that the new Fiat Multipla is in a class of its own”

The Multipla was Fiat group’s entry into the practical family haulage market in the very late nineties, though the name-plate had been used before several decades ago. Slotting below the larger Ulysse  model, it sat upon a mechanical package shared by the Brava and Bravo models. There were only two models at launch, an SX and a more richly equipped ELX, with a choice of either petroleum or derv propulsion with outputs around the 105hp mark. This was never a high-performance vehicle, flexibility and economy being ranked of higher importance. But; for the vast majority, the Multipla will be remembered less for what it was than for how it looked. Which is to say; divisive.

At a time where one-size-fits-all, lowest common denominator design was rife, the Multipla stood out from the crowd like a Antoni Gaudi creation might amidst a terrace of identical townhouses. It was a masterpiece of absolute design bravery. Unfortunately, bravery is not always what the customer wants.

“Unsurprisingly for a car that has re-written the rule book on car design, the new Fiat Multipla is difficult to define”

 It kind of was. It was shorter and wider than the usual MPV norm, and carried its human cargo in two three-abreast rows. This meant that the rear loadspace was unaffected by seating, and huge loads could be carried with a little creativity.

It was also difficult to define in terms of styling. Personally, I’ve always admired the way it showed total contempt for the way this kind of car was usually designed. The raised passenger compartment called for a peculiar stepped bonnet-line, the additional prow beneath the windscreen being home to a pair of auxilliary lights, a bit like with the old Matra Rancho. The headlamps were round and frog-like, and the rear lamps all gloopy and irregular. There was barely anything about the Multipla which followed any kind of design convention.

Additionally, in a wonderful display of charming self-deprecation, many examples had a sticker on the rear windscreen reading simply “Wait until you see the front”.

“You do not need walls to feel at home”

The story continued inside. The dashboard was completely centrally mounted with the steering wheel itself having nothing but a sea of carpet and a storage box beyond it. All controls were built into a moulded central stack, a big, ugly carbuncle of a thing, looking like a meeting of all the ugliest fish from the darkest depths of the sea’s most inhospitable trenches. The instrument cluster sat immediately above the HVAC controls, with the remarkably short-throw gearbox just below that.

The Multipla got off to a good start, with the motoring press giving it plaudits right, left and centre, including Top Gear magazine, who bestowed it with their Car Of The Year award in 1999. It continued to dominate their Family Car category in that award series for the next five years.

“All great design is the fusion of form and function- the supreme expression of an idea. A moment when creative intuition becomes a work of art”

The design was of sufficient interest to find itself featured in the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, so it was universally agreed among design enthusiasts that the adventurousness of the whole endeavour was A Good Thing. Unfortunately, this respect among “experts” didn’t translate into widespread acceptance by the buying public. After four years of slowing sales the Multipla was subjected to a very cruel restyle which saw it shorn of so many of its most individual features.

Fast forwards to today and, rather than the clean-sheet creativity / recklessness of the Multipla we have instead the Fiat 500L  and XL, which take a fairly generic small MPV recipe and garnish it with trappings scraped off the surface of the already-loved 500. The unkind would pan the Multipla for being “ugly” a decade ago. How can the same folk possibly think that the 500XL looks any better today?

 (Disclaimer: All images are of original manufacturer publicity materials, photographed by me. Copyright remains property of Fiat SPA, who might do something crazy again one day. I live in hope)