“The Strange and Intelligent Fiat Multipla: A Car Ahead of its Time in 1998”

Once upon a time there was the Multipla. Once upon a time there was a strange car that you could even get on almost standing up, as if it were a chariot that never turned into a pumpkin, not even when you went home after midnight. Once upon a time there was the Multipla, it was 1998 and it was the time of its second life after a first lived at the hands of Dante Giacosa in 1956. Watch out, who knows tomorrow or the day after tomorrow – we say it with a smile – his name could return.

Twenty-five years ago, the Multipla was a Fiat that resembled no other car in the world: six seats in two rows with identical seats, tall and square with a flat floor, only 3.99 meters long so as not to be said to be 4 , and 1.87 wide up to 2.10 with the mirrors open, a flagship size on the side.

Roberto Giolito had designed it and at the time it was rumored that engineer Paolo Cantarella, for two years at the top of the Fiat group and head of Fiat Auto for the previous six years, often and willingly went down to the style center in Mirafiori to put his mouth around. And you want to say things about that bizarre minivan, starting with the front where two headlights were set in a step that divided the windshield and the bonnet in addition to the always round ones that were lower down, where they should have been.

The Multipla wasn’t beautiful, but it was beautiful inside and intelligent and, in short, it was a car that had to be driven and lived in order to truly enjoy it. The cabin, bright thanks to a low beltline, was democratic with equal space for all six. The boot was roomy, from 430 liters to 1,300 giving up the three seats in the second row. And then that flat floor that made it possible to sit in the center by sliding on the seats without problems or even to climb aboard straight by straight, just like on the coaches or the less valuable turn-of-the-century carriages.

Those who sat behind the wheel, in an elevated position like everyone else, had the small gear lever at the top of the console within easy reach, and therefore those who sat alongside had no problems with their feet. If nobody was there, the backrest of the central front seat folded down to become a small table or, on request at the time of purchase, a mini fridge instead of the sixth seat.

The Multipla was not beautiful, but in 1999 a specimen ended up at the Moma in New York for the “Different Roads” exhibition, the right car for the new roads of mobility. Yes, on the road the Fiat minivan behaved like a proper estate car, petrol, LPG, methane and turbodiesel engines with the last one to be recommended because fuel consumption was not its strong point. The Multipla was a punch in the face of aerodynamics: it had a high and wide front section and there was not the slightest hint of a descending roof behind it, an ideal architecture for exploiting all the centimeters inside but from zero in the pipeline for the air flows. ‘air.

Our six-seater was not very successful on the market and it didn’t look like any other car in the world, even if Giacosa’s had six seats too but on three rows and a sloping rear roof that couldn’t be steeper. Too early, too late, too original and that’s it, Giolito’s Multipla remained on the list until 2010, however, after an unfortunate restyling in 2004 which standardized it in the famous step and in the headlights all back according to tradition.

Well before that, and fortunately, Multipla was the protagonist of an advertising spot that makes the memory of Michael Schumacher even more dear. The young driver lends himself to acting, for once managing to be nice and speaking in Italian: in an elegant restaurant, at one point he gets up and moves six chairs in two rows to explain the six seats in the Multipla. “And the luggage?” asks a skeptical diner, and Schumi quickly drags the dessert trolley behind the second row of chairs. Once upon a time.