The manufacturer's term for the appearance of the new-look Citroen Berlingo Multispace is "unconventional". They're damn right it is. "Howlingly ugly," some might say. Here is a painter and decorator's van masquerading as a family car. It looks like the kind of thing in which you might set off to round up a town's stray dogs and bring them back, yapping, to the pound. It does a pretty good impression of a yapping stray dog itself.
I took mine to a horserace deep in the heart of Somerset. In among the mud-encrusted Range Rovers and sheep-spattered Discoveries, its metallic-finish aquamarine paintwork and generally bold bearing made it stand out like a brownie at a scout convention. Children's eyes lit up, assuming I was bringing ice creams. I parked up by the rails and would not have been entirely surprised had people started queueing at the side window for burgers.
Frankly, by then, though, I would not have cared. I had driven more than 100 miles across the English countryside, transporting bags, shopping, various combinations of adults, children and a dog (to a maximum of five) in absolutely no style at all but in ample space, light and comfort. And I had also got to play needlessly with the sliding rear doors. All this in a car costing less than £11,000.
You can either have a cloth roof, which folds back to form what Citroen proudly maintains is the largest sunroof in the history of the world. Or you can go for the solid top, kitted out inside with an overhead modubox (Citroen's term).
Like the optional folding tray tables on the seat backs, this is an idea adapted from air travel. It is essentially a false ceiling, done out in cream plastic and arranged to create a variety of storage spaces in the area above your hair. For instance, one of the overhead cubby holes was grooved to form a CD-rack, which was very handy and would have been even more so had the car come with a CD player. (You can arrange that with the dealer, of course.)
Increasing the weirdness, between the boxes and shelves there are a number of oblong skylights. Of course, it is a fact about car travel that pockets and cupboards that are intended to provide temporary homes for things tend very soon to become permanent homes for them, especially if the things in question are items of rubbish.
So how warmly one greets the overhead modubox will depend largely on how one feels about the prospect of travelling with a tray of empty crisp packets, a two-thirds consumed strawberry Ribena carton and several broken toy parts from a McDonald's Happy Meal directly above one's head.
Still, out of sight is out of mind and there is no doubt that this system increases a hundredfold the potential for gathering and managing junk - something of a core task among today's motoring families, for whom it will prove a boon.
The trip to the race enabled me briefly to take the Berlingo off-road and test its guts and flexibility across a pitted field dotted with livestock and picnicking farmers. I don't think you would want to do a lot of that in a Berlingo - not if you valued the integrity of its body panels and suspension, and the health of your own spine. On a couple of the bigger bumps, I almost stowed my rear passengers' heads in the overhead lockers for them.
You are better off on the smooth, where the Berlingo performs admirably. From the look of it, and the fact that I was driving a diesel version, I was resigned to travelling the M4 at 28mph and was delighted and relieved when the car proved itself entirely third-lane compatible.
Because of its height, the wind laughs in your face all the way. But you can still hear the hi-fi over the top of it, if you crank it up loud enough and, at these prices, one ought to be grateful enough for that.
If you want a really ugly car that's so practical you forget about the ugliness, then the Berlingo is your vehicle - though you may also care to try the Fiat Multipla, which seats six while looking like a fairground ride. Bear in mind, however, that we wanted to take an apple pie on a plate to the races - preferably to eat, though, if desperate, to gamble with - and it is my duty to report that, remarkably, there was no specifically designed apple-pie holder in the Berlingo.
You would think Citroen, having thought of everything else, would have thought of that. It must have been well within the reach of the designers of an overhead modubox with a CD-restraining facility to come up with an operational tarte tatin stacker or flan-related modupod. We had to wedge it between some bags in the boot and hope it didn't turn to crumble on the way.
It didn't. The pie arrived intact, and possibly even slightly fresher than it was when we put it in. Typical of the Berlingo. You can try very hard to make unreasonable demands of it, but it still can't bring itself to let you down.
