While strolling through Vienna’s Innere Stadt and taking in the gorgeous heritage architecture, I beheld a sight rather less aesthetically pleasing: two cars considered to be among the ugliest cars ever produced, the Fiat Multipla and the Ssangyong Rodius/Stavic. What a sight for sore eyes, eyes certainly sorer having seen them.
Alas, this sighting would have been more notable had the Multipla not been the heavily sanitized facelifted model which, along with many Fiats of the early/mid-2000s, replaced character with handsome if anonymously straight-edged styling. The dorky bubble-top look is still present with this revised Multipla but the lower half is anodyne. I’d call this awkward more so than ugly.
This is the Multipla before it went under the scalpel, its dugong-esque styling distracting potential buyers from a genuinely comfortable and practical compact MPV.
Seating was three abreast both front and rear, with middle seats that could be folded completely flat and legroom that rivalled that of flagship luxury sedans.
Based on the C-segment Bravo/Brava hatchbacks, the Multipla was six inches shorter than a contemporary Volkswagen Golf but 0.6 inches wider than a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. That meant it was still around three inches narrower than an AMC Pacer but a more practical application of the “wide small car” concept the defunct AMC espoused.
As you may have expected, the Multipla was outsold by more conservative rivals like the Renault Scenic and Opel Zafira. However, the conservative 2004 refresh didn’t sell any better than the 1999-2003 model, though it did arrest a gradual sales slide. Despite initially bizarre styling, the Multipla was critically acclaimed and a worthy entrant into the hot compact MPV segment in Europe.
(clockwise from top left) Musso, Kyron, Actyon, Tivoli XLV, Korando
Ssangyong is widely regarded as the manufacturer of some of the ugliest cars ever. I give them kudos, however, for being adventurous in their styling. The Actyon, for example, has come to look less ridiculous with age, much like the Pontiac Aztek and Isuzu VehiCross presaged various crossovers and SUVs as ugly as them. The Musso is chunky and purposeful, while the Kyron blends conservative with daring.
The Rodius/Stavic? Ugly. Pug fugly. Not a damn good line on this mess of a design. When it first came out, it reminded me of the Ford Falcon wagon taxis modified to accommodate a wheelchair. It was cheap and spacious but, while that was the recipe for instant sales success for Kia’s Carnival (Sedona) six years earlier in Australia, the Stavic languished in obscurity almost certainly because of how damned ugly it was.
It almost seemed like an elaborate prank. I mean, naming it “Rodius”? That literally rhymes with “odious”. Were “Ropulsive” and “Lepugnant” trademarked already? The alternative name, Stavic, didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, either. Hilariously, “Rodius” was purportedly chosen as it’s a portmanteau of “road” and “Zeus”, while British designer Ken Greenley’s design vision was to evoke luxury yachts. It’s almost too easy to pile on the Ssangyong as everyone else already has. I know that I’m sometimes the dissenting view when it comes to cars almost universally reviled – I’m a huge fan of the ’96 Taurus’ design, after all – but even I can’t say a nice word about the Rodius’ styling.
Like the Multipla, it had a heavily sanitized redesign. The 2013 Rodius/Stavic – pleasantly renamed Turismo in some markets – addressed the most egregious aesthetic affronts of the first Rodius while retaining its capacious interior and various Mercedes-Benz-sourced mechanicals. The proportions were still a bit wonky but it was no longer nauseatingly ugly.
In addition to improved styling, the new Rodius/Stavic also came in nine, ten and eleven-seat configurations in the South Korean market.
The Ssangyong never received anywhere near the level of critical acclaim afforded to the Fiat Multipla. And yet, today, the Multipla is gone and the Ssangyong lives on.
Don’t worry, though, ugly car fans. Fiat will still sell you a challengingly-styled people mover.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1959 Fiat 600 Mutlipla – The Original Mini-Van?
Curbside Classic: 1997 SsangYong “Benz” Musso – Ssurely You Can’t Be SseriousS
COAL: 2015 Fiat 500L Urbana Trekking – I Bought One. That’s Got to be a Bad Omen For Fiat.
Curbside Capsule: (Photo) Capturing My White Whale, the Ssangyong Chairman
The Multiplia really looks like an amazingly spacious vehicle in a small footprint. Wish it could be at last a bit more aesthetically blended – it doesn’t have to be pretty but it should flow a bit with its lines…
Well, I wonder how well the competition would stack up to FIAT’s ugly duck in terms of sheer usefulness? I would think it would score high on that category.
The Multipla was a brilliant car especially with the turbo diesel engine they go great and handle better than anything else in their class,
Ssangyong beat their cars with the ugly stick just a little too long before letting them out of the factory but they are quite capable vehicles, we have a fixed spec race series using Ssangyong utes so even though the styling team went home when the LSD wore off the engineers stayed on. Both seemed to exist originally only to make Ford hideous AU Falcon look semi normal.
Did the Actyon inspire those god-awful coupe-SUVs like the BMW X6 that are becoming more popular now? It looks like a Kia Avella (Ford Aspire) on stilts. Haven’t seen a Musso in a long time; they looked weird, but I understand they were quite capable off road and as towing vehicles.
Fiat Multipla is like plush slippers, nothing is so comfortable like that, but never mind I’d use it in society.
Back in the day I got a drive of a “double-bubble” Multipla and I had to admit it was brilliant. It always reminded me of Cinderellas pumpkin coach.
When a relative asked me if she should buy one though, I had to tell her to ignore the looks and just consider Fiat build quality.
I got a ride in a rental example of the early Multipla. Ugly yes, but with a full load of six people and the turbo diesel, it was quite impressive in the mountains of southern France. The Rodius is indeed hideous, but not hugely worse than a Buick Rendezvous. The Musso and Korando seemed pretty bad in their day and the passage of time has done them no favors in my opinion.
Multipla’s width is about the same as W221 S-Class: 73.7 inches.
I did wonder about that. If it was six inches more as described, it’d be the same width as a 1973 Imperial!
Whups! I forgot the decimal place and put “six” instead of “0.6”. Don’t know what I was thinking, the Multipla clear isn’t half a foot wider than an S.
That’s really quite the photo to take in Mittleuropa. How many Odiousess would have been sold in Austria? One? This one? Perhaps a local had one too many Stroh rums, bought it as a “luxury yacht” to sail alongside the Austrian navy, and when he sobered up, left it parked here forever after, denying all knowledge.
Inexplicably, Greenley was Professor of Vehicle Design at the Royal College of Art in London. He’s now an automotive consultant: perhaps manufacturers ask him to design cars, and then make sure that they then design the opposite.
The original Multipla is ofcourse a pretty curious looking thing, but (to my mind), in a good way. It’s difference is dictated by function, where the Ssangyong is the dead opposite, trying – with ridiculous effect – to cover up the utilitarian purpose.
Great photo.
That’s really quite the photo to take in Mittleuropa. How many Odiousess would have been sold in Austria? One?
I don’t know the definitive answer but it’s a lot more than one, having seen several on our last trip there in 2016.
Not having a domestic auto industry, Austria and some other small countries in Europe are much more likely to embrace a wide range of imports. And the Koreans have done well there, as in other European countries also because the prices are so much better than on something comparable from north of the border. Often by very large margins.
The fact that SSangyong uses MBZ diesels is icing on the cake. Have you priced a G Series lately?
Frankly, the Rodius’ looks aren’t exactly all that earth-shatteringly ugly. Every car blog (and its commenters) has to rag on about it at least once a year or so. Frankly, it looks pretty anonymous after you’ve seen a few in the flesh.
Austrians tend to being thrifty and practical, and there’s no way the Rodius’ looks was going to stand in the way of many buyers there. Lots of folks live up in the mountains or out in the country and need a rugged SUV, and the Korean’s price theirs very attractively. That’s more important than looks to many Austrians. 🙂
I don’t usually like to pile on cars commonly regarded as ugly and I actually admire Ssangyong for doing something different: the Actyon is a design I really dig, the Kyron is neat, the Korando’s grown on me, etc etc. But I see a few Stavics around and they’ve never grown on me, even as other cars’ designs I once hated (final Toyota Celica, BMW X6) have.
It is possible I may have been speaking less than seriously, but I suppose that I was just assuming a storied Old Europe country is one that would dismiss the questionable taste that a Rodious represents, which is itself a bit unthinking, so I certainly take your point. And I am surprised this car is a visible presence there. Australians too were once thrifty, but are now more spendthrift, which meant a weird looker like this was rejected for a higher-payment badge.
As to the looks, you can be assured I formed my opinion unaided other than by my glasses, and for the reason I said: it’s a dishonest and pretentious design, with crass detailing, and the result is that my opinion appears to join the herd.
I have a perverse liking for the original Multipla and its unique seat layout. Six seat mini MPVs make a lot of sense for hauling a nuclear family and one set of grandparents or a carpool. Having the seats in two rows instead of the more common 3 row setup retains cargo space with 6 passengers.
As for Ssangyong, I think they existed solely to provide a rival to Mitsuoka for hideousness.
Agreed. If it’s wide enough, three abreast is probably preferable to a distant, tight third row where you shove your two least favourite (or two smallest) family members. Honda also copied this concept with the European FR-V
These don’t hold a candle in ugliness to a new Lexus. They evidently are going all out for the angry catfish front end.