Multiple choice
And there’s plenty of room for the kids, says Sarah Vine Ionce sat next to a very self-important fellow at a public relations lunch. He was a largish cheese for a luxury car manufacturer: mid-forties, nice suit, all the charm of an Albanian peopletrafficker. After he’d finished an hour-long monologue about his and his corporation’s marvellousness he inquired, through a cloud of Cognac and cigar emissions, what it was that ‘ladies’ wanted in a vehicle.
As you can imagine, I was thrilled to have my humble opinion canvassed. I kept it brief: handbag space. He looked blank. ‘You know,’ I elaborated. ‘There’s nothing more irritating than having it sloshing around on the front seat. You brake suddenly, all your stuff ends up on the floor and you lose your lipstick under the clutch, which is dangerous as well as annoying. So somewhere to put your handbag would be nice.’ He regarded me with consternation. ‘Is that it? What about colour?’ Not bothered. ‘Torque?’ ‘Is cheap,’ I quipped, unsuccessfully. ‘Fuel consumption?’ Up to a point. ‘Gadgets?’ Strictly for the boys. He leant back in his chair. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said, ‘we don’t make cars for people like you.’ Which is fine, because people like me can’t afford his sort of car anyway, and even if I could, I wouldn’t buy one for fear of contributing even a single penny to the bonus of such a monumental oaf. But someone else at that table must have been listening, because since then the market has been inundated with cars that not only have space for your handbag, but also for your coffee, your laptop, your children, your children’s friends, your dog, and all the other stuff that families accumulate. Hell, these cars practically are handbags: I speak, of course, of MPVs (multi-purpose vehicles).
Unlike SUVs, which are mostly designed to show off the driver’s expensive highlights, MPVs revel in their functionality. On the whole they are liked more by women than men, who fear them as symbols of middle age. I disagree. After all, what clearer proof of alpha maleness could there be than having to resort to an MPV to accommodate the many fruits of your mighty loins?
I have a friend who has four children under the age of seven. Since the birth of his third he has been driving a Fiat Multipla. Despite being universally acknowledged as the ugliest car in the world, inside it is genius. It has six seats arranged in two rows and a capacious boot. The two-row thing is crucial: many of its rivals have the normal two-front, two-back configuration, with two further collapsible seats in the boot: three rows. Inevitably, someone ends up in the boot.
Not only does this mean limited luggage capacity, it also creates diplomatic problems, especially on long journeys. There are arguments about who gets to sit in the middle, and once the unfortunate loser has been strapped in the back, items of appeasement cannot be passed to them without the full co-operation of their siblings, who are at best asleep, at worst openly hostile. With the Multipla, everyone is within arm’s length. Two adults and four car seats are perfectly viable. Everyone can hear everyone else, even when hurtling down the motorway at an unsteady 90 mph. The only downside is the lack of toys. By which I mean added extras: satellite navigation, video screens, parking sensors, that sort of thing.
This was the reason why, with his trusty bugeyed monster on its last legs, my friend looked around for something new. The Ford S-Max caught his eye, mainly because it has a plethora of exciting add-ons on which to fritter away what little disposable income remains after paying the mortgage and four sets of school fees.
It’s definitely nicer to drive than the Multipla (the Multipla’s gear-stick is in a funny place because of the front middle seat). But despite that, and the lure of the gadgets, it just didn’t appeal. Why? Too bland. It’s an MPV that wants you to think it’s a regular car and there’s something a bit sad about that, like sliding your wedding ring into your pocket at a party. At least the Multipla is honest about its limitations.
Such a shame, then, that Fiat have redesigned it. It’s all boring now. Gone are the bug-eyes and the lumps and bumps. You can still get it in an array of lurid colours (there’s a particularly nasty orange), but otherwise there’s little to distinguish it from the pack. Perhaps they did it to compete with the new Skoda Roomster, which, from the outside at least, looks remarkably mundane. Inside, however, it’s most surprising. It can become a van (handy for trips to Ikea), you can get a bike in the back and the seats move backwards, forwards and even sideways.
And what about the engine? Well, put it this way, none of them are Ferraris, but they all go — which, as my friend points out, is the best that can be expected. At our stage in life.
GETTY IMAGES
Sarah Vine is a features writer at the Times.
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