Here's the true story of Jennifer Grey. A teenage movie star, she accrued an impressive male following for roles in movies such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Dirty Dancing. She dated the great and good, including Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp, and shot onto the A-list of the celebrity world.
Even though she wasn't what you would call, stunningly beautiful, she had what polite company calls distinctive looks.
However, Grey had a problem. She hated the very thing that made her distinctive - her large nose. To further her career she joined the long line of Hollywood celebrities on the nip-and-tuck trolleys. She lost her nose - and her identity.
Don't misunderstand. Grey's double nose job, which she says was intended only to refine her features, didn't leave her looking like the Elephant Girl. She's attractive, but there's just nothing distinctive enough to make anybody glance twice. Grey had to introduce herself to one-time boyfriend Cruise when they met after the operations. Even a bit-part in Friends didn't save her career, because no one recognised her as the girl who pumped and grinded with Patrick Swayze all those years before.
What's that got to do with the Fiat Multipla? Well, the Italians are pulling a Jennifer Grey. They don't see the sales for the six-seater people carrier performing as they would like, so they point the finger at the car's most distinctive feature and decide that's the source of all their woes.
Sure, the original car was a love/hate affair. And it was certainly original in more ways than one.
There was no getting over those looks, the most prominent feature being the bulbous "sausage-style" front light format stretched across the front. It was like something from Toytown. Yet this was precisely why so many grew fond of the enthusiastic people carrier. On school runs it epitomised the world of the children being carried around inside, looking like an extra from Toy Story, Barney the Dinosaur or something from the Muppet Show.
The car had a real personality. You half-expected tears to fall from those high-set headlights every time someone made fun of it. It was also immensely practical.
Not everyone needs the full seven-seat format that competitors offer, said Fiat, six seats would suffice. The two-bench format meant there was no need to hump seats in and out of the boot, nor climb over the back seat bench to finally reach a pair of spacesaver seats where you could sit chewing your knees for the length of the journey.
With the Multipla six seats meant six full-size seats. You could carry half the local basketball team without complaint. Admittedly, since Opel cracked flexible foldaway seating, the benefits have somewhat waned and legroom in the last row in most of these has improved dramatically of late. Nevertheless the Multipla was the easiest to live with if six is your magic number.
Finally, it drove well, winning great plaudits from the motoring press internationally. Don't just take our word - Top Gear voted it car of the year in 2000, and family car of the year in 2000 and 2001.
Yet sales were dismal and Fiat, with its financial woes, can't afford passengers on its fleet, no matter how strong their personality. So the Multipla had to change or die.
What they've done is remove the personality from the car to create yet another utilitarian metal box to lug people around. The strange thing is that without the "sausage" up front the Multipla actually looks even weirder. The enormous windows and raised roof belong to a popemobile for some poorly funded papal visit, where all they had to hand was a Stilo they converted.
Of course, all that glass means that, for its wide girth, the car is easy to weave through parking lots with oceans of visibility on all sides. It also means that passengers get a great view, a good point for avoiding car sickness in kids.
But there's a downside. These huge panes of glass are bigger than the doors themselves. So what? Well, that means that even when wound down fully there's a good three to four inches left sticking up. This means awkward reaches over the glass at car park ticket dispensers.
Inside the loudly coloured trim retains some of the Play School charm of the old model and works to cheer you up, though it never even attempts to look classy.
The central console, however, is truly hideous. The airvents look like some fungal growth on the dash and the speedometer is out of the direct eyeline of the driver. That's increasingly common these days, but, because Fiat has brought it closer to the front, it takes a definite turn of the head to read it. One more reason why rigid policing of the speed limits could actually prove dangerous.
The engine is good and the gearstick is to hand on the dash, though the box itself is not that impressive. Thankfully the 1.6-litre engine is capable of pulling you along at a steady pace and the 1.9-litre JTD should prove a huge success with those who have to clock up the added miles.
On ride and handling, the Multipla feels slightly disengaged on national B-roads, the chassis slightly overburdened by the extra load and the power steering neutered. But there's no complaint about comfort over long trips, thanks to all that legroom front and rear. Three across the front in a family car is quirky enough to warrant praise, and the fact that all six seats can be adjusted independently for legroom is an added bonus. The front and rear central seat backs can be folded flat and used as tables with integrated cup holders, while all the back seats can be removed to increase load space to over 1,900 cubic litres.
Despite its slight increase in width over competitors, the car is nimble in parking lots. Stretching to just four metres, it's significantly shorter than competitors.
When you consider the practicality and just how often you'll need seven seats, the Multipla is worth a look. After all, Honda's very cautious engineers have gone for six seats for their new FR-V.
Fiat's four-year warranty will ease any concerns about long-term reliability traditionally linked to the Italian brand. The entry-level model, well-priced at €23,995, lacks certain standard features, with only two front airbags fitted.
However on the Dynamic specification, that increases to both side and window airbags, along with park assist and climate control - and at €25,995 it's still priced at the basic entry price of several competitors.
Yet, in terms of car design, it's another victory for the accountants. A similar desire to be mainstream led Jennifer Grey to go under the knife.
