Fiat launched the most practical small car in Europe — and buried it because it was ugly

The Fiat Multipla, launched in 1998, was an engineering solution to a real problem: how to fit six seats, a flat load floor, and a panoramic driving position into a car shorter than four metres. The answer was a two-tier front end — a roll of bodywork below the windshield that housed the headlights and a second set of indicators. The car was widely mocked. Top Gear named it the ugliest car ever made.

Underneath the controversy, the Multipla was genuinely innovative. It offered six individual seats in a compact footprint, a raised driving position that predated the SUV boom by a decade, and a flat floor that made the interior feel twice its size. Owners loved it. The motoring press could not stop talking about the face.

In 2004 Fiat redesigned the front end to look conventional. The car's sales, which had been modest but steady, declined. Production ended in 2010. The Multipla's engineering ideas — compact MPV packaging, raised seating, flexible interiors — were adopted by every manufacturer within five years. The car that invented the category was forgotten; the category it invented became the industry standard.