These Original Fiat Multipla Variants Are Scrambling My Brains

Are they literally scrambling my brains, as though my brains were eggs, as I was led to believe they were by PSAs in the 1980s? Possibly not. I’m neither a neurologist nor an oologist. But you know what, they may be, because that original Fiat 600 Multipla from 1956 is already one of the most gleefully bonkers-rational-bonkers cars ever produced, and encountering variations on this theme – both from famous Italian designers and from the factory itself – is, you know, a lot to take.

In a good way.

The 1956 Fiat 600 Multipla wasn’t exactly the first minivan – Volkswagen’s Type 2 and DKW’s Schnellaster both beat Fiat to the punch there by six to seven years – but the Fiat was the most boldly tiny of these, and I think that’s worth something. Fiat took their already decidedly diminutive 600 and sat the driver over the front axle and wrapped the rest in a boxy-yet-roundy body, creating a masterpiece of packaging and space utilization:

That’s way more people and cargo than the regular 600 could carry, and it could carry six people in three rows of seats, too – the thing was a real triumph of cramming a lot into a little box. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement, at least according to some pretty famous designers. Really, I’m surprised at just how many design houses took a crack at their own versions of the Multipla.

Pininfarina made a very early Fiat 600 Multipla variant in 1956, the year the Multipla was released, and the goals seemed to be to move the little box upmarket. Most notably, there’s a sort of reverse-continental treatment on the front end, which seems to be housing the spare tire, which was mounted in the passenger footwell on the stock Multipla, so that likely improved front passenger comfort a good bit.

You can see where the stock spare tire location was above there.

I suspect it also helped offer a touch more crash protection, as the modification pushed the whole front bumper assembly forward a bit and added a nice chunk of extra material and tire between your legs and whatever you may choose to drive into.

The side chrome treatment is interesting, too, a sort of lightning-bolt-like strake that traverses the entire side of the vehicle. There are fancier wheel covers, too, giving the whole thing a much swankier presence than the normal Multipla.

Other design houses sought to enhance the space and utility of the Multipla, instead of trying to class it up. Vignale, for example, tried a more commercial-focused variant with a slightly more upright rear end for greater interior volume and, usefully, a sliding door.

Similarly, Fissore’s Multipla Sabrina from 1960 took the Multipla design and applied a much more rectilinear design approach, increasing internal volumes and bringing the look more into the 1960s from the jelly-mold 1950s design vocabulary the car used.

Fiat’s later small vans like the 850T Familiare were remarkably close to this sort of design, so clearly Fissore was onto something here.

Fiat themselves also tried their hand at a more commercially-oriented Multipla, called, excitingly, the Promiscuo:

…that name, by the way, refers to the car’s multi-use abilities, as opposed to it having, um, flexible sexual mores.

There were also pickup truck versions, which are absolutely fantastic. This seems to be a pretty early truck variant, also by Vignale, the Fiat 600 Multipla Camioncino, and I say it seems to be an early attempt at a pickup truck because it retains the side door of the original Multipla. 

I’d like to think it can be loaded from that now half-door from the side, much like a Corvair rampside pickup, and while we can’t exactly see it here, the bed must be similar to that truck as well, having a much deeper middle section and then a higher platform over the rear-mounted engine.

Fiat themselves also made a much more straightforward type of pickup truck, the Cassonato, and this one is quite similar to the layout of other rear-engined pickup trucks like the VW Type 2 pickups, with a high flat bed, and all three sides of the bed able to fold down for loading. A storage locker under the bed, between the wheels, is also like the VW pickup, and, honestly, that’s a great feature in any pickup truck.

It’s so tiny and useful-looking and clever I could just spit; I suppose Japanese Kei trucks are keeping this concept alive even to this day.

Who knew the strange little Multipla would be so irresistible to so many designers? I mean, I get it, but I’m still delighted, and no one can take that from me, dammit.