Oh yeah, well we all like a nice ammount of rimmage dont we?
Mate, I even took pictures... lol
I made sure I measured the side against the house (it was on the drive)
To be honest, I quite like the Multipla, its 1 of those cars thats so ugly/weird, its beautiful... to me anyway... like a 500 or an SZ or an Allegro estate for example *cough*.
I was pretty disapointed when they did the bland facelifted one...
Looks like we agree on all counts... I think!
The 500... of course... the SZ! One of my favourite Alfas! ... and the Allegro Estate... well why not, it was a sort of distorted Schimitar. Of course I always thought the Princess was a better effort from Harris Mann than the Allegro was. http://www.leylandprincess.co.uk/HarrisMann.htm I even owned several Princesses - those and the Toyota Celica are the only non-FIAT-group cars I've owned.
I think it's fair to say that Harris Mann was not an engineer and that is where things went horribly wrong - once the 'hard parts' were put in place the concept style suffered - unlike in the Issigonis era when the car was designed around the engineering.
I thought the 2000-era Multipla was a great achievement - here was a car that seated six within an overall shape that was only the size of a regular five-seater. The design was innovative in many ways - the 'top hat' shape for the feeling of more room (at head level), the low waistline (which looks particularly wonderful now that cars have higher and higher waistlines), huge windows (ditto - windows get smaller and smaller), gearlever on the dashboard, etc. etc. Definitely designed around the engineering but with great new engineering as well... It was NOT ugly for the sake of Ugly - like that Ssangyong Rodius or Stavic... http://www.mirror.co.uk/advice/arch...ong-rodius-is-value-but-ugly-115875-20855401/ The Multipla was ugly for a purpose. And that makes it beautiful. Stylish too. On top of all that, you got great turbodiesel engines.
It was truly deserving of the name, which recounted a version of the 600 that was an odd forward-control version for extra room inside.
The facelifted Multipla with the Zafira-look at least retained some of the key Multipla attributes.
I like the Alfa 164 so much because here again we seem to find a car that is designed around the engineering, with a great deal of testing and development and many new solutions. The beauty is more than skin deep.
Anyway I also take photos of things I think are interesting but that no-one else would care about - such as the silly text seen on Jap Import wheels ("Just a roller skate grand touring. All over the great ironic power.") or on the side of some of the vehicles themselves ("Nissan Patrol is for the man who has the feel of life in his own life. To enjoy yourself. That is important.") I remember a few years back getting a snap of a new Lexus model with non-Lexus-style rear lights (i.e. 'normal' rear lights) which made me laugh. Mazda was just bringing out the 3 and the 6, both with Lexus-style rear lights.
EDIT: AND you have some great cars there in the small print I like the way you mix it up...
-Alex
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