The Fiat Multipla is an European family car from the early 2000s, so it shouldn't be famous... not even in Europe. Yet it's known all over the world for being the ugliest four-wheeled machine known to man. And today, we got to see Doug DeMuro review one, which is really puzzling.
There shouldn't be a Multipla in America for him to review, just like with the Trabant or the Suzuki Jimny. Okay, those aren't helping our point.
But first, a little history lesson. How come people care so much about this car? Well, it's probably down to Top Gear, who in 2000 awarded it both Car of the Year and Ugliest Car. In fact, the magazine praised it for several years while Clarkson&Co made fun of the design, which is quite confusing.
The Multipla's shape was created by Italian designer Roberto Giolito. He also penned the 2004 Fiat Trepiuno, which previewed the Fiat 500. If you look past the strange two-level design, this was probably the most revolutionary family car in Europe at the time. It had three seats in a row, like a van, instead of three rows. So soccer moms all over Europe had lots of space at their disposal without a cumbersome package.
You also had van-style split door mirrors, which are great for eliminating blind spots. Since we've mentioned that feature, we should probably switch to talking about Doug DeMuro's review. The YouTuber says he's wanted to check out a Multipla for many years and thankfully got the chance thanks to the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
Besides the front end, the Multipla has another strange design element, which is the roof. It looks like an unnatural swelling with unnaturally tall side windows. The flamboyant Italians also made the rear end unconventional by curving the glass.
But wait, there's more. The taillights are built from the factory to look like they have bubbles in them. Maybe they knew Fiat build quality would eventually let water get in there and decided to make this into a feature.
The interior is built to be very cheap, but interesting. Like a small van of that era, the Multipla has all the controls and the gauges in the middle of the dash. But this is paired up with purple trim throughout the cabin.
DeMuro doesn't go into detail about the engine. But it's pretty easy to figure out that this is a UK-spec car with a 1.6-liter gas-powered 16-valve motor. It should have produced 102 horsepower when new and required 12.6 seconds to reach 62 mph (100 kph).
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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