For good dads

The B-Max slides in between a big taxi and small hatch.

Trying to be as good a dad as my father is, I don’t buy cars for their looks.

In fact, the higher that shoulder line, the lower the car’s dad rating.

Kids need low windows to see out of, see? 

Kids also need grandparents, who need wide doors and high seats. 

And kids beget stuff, so dad needs a lot of booty, both to stuff the stuff into; and the kind of booty pirates liked to loot. 

Hence the best dad cars have low running costs, long service intervals and a booty like the one disported by Jennifer Lopez . 

(Can we all pause for a moment to reflect again on the importance of good booty design?)

Now, the best dad car EVER was the six-seater Fiat Multipla. 
Tiny footprint, huge space, six seats, 4.2 l/100km and looks no-one would steal. 
In fact, the Mutipla looks so bad, no normal teenager likes to be seen in “that”. 
In comparison, the teens did allow the B-MAX to drive them to the school’s main gate. 

Which means this sliding-door Ford may have gotten right that most difficult of industrial designs: A cool car for good dads.

The windows are low, the seats are high and the service intervals are every 20,000km, with a four-year or 60,000km service plan to cover three of these intervals. In the UK, where the B-MAX has been running since 2013, happy owners are the norm, bar the odd electric gremlin, which every mechanic knows has no rhyme nor reason.

Oh, and the booty swallows 318 litres with the seats up. A very important position, as is intimated by the rapper, Onika Tanya Maraj. in her own salacious 'Anaconda' music video.

Because most dads will sell their B-MAX after three years, this is the duration of Ford's road side assistance, alongside unlimited kilometres. The warrantee is, however, four years long (or 120 000km), which gives the next owner of the used B-MAX a gratis year of comprehensive cover. Nice how the sums work out.

The second best thing

The second best thing about the B-MAX is how the septuagenarians can just slide onto the three back seats through that 1.5m-wide door opening. It really is clever engineering – getting door frames to interlock into a B-pillar – but to make one a sliding door verges on showing off. 
Clearly Ford engineers know how to minimise galling and increase dynamic friction in their nuts.

The family members care naught for all this. For them the vehicle's ability to quickly send the noise from the phone's playlist via Bluetooth to at least six speakers is what sell the car, or not, as the case may be.
Ford’s Bluetooth system is, however, so Luddite-friendly that three clicks had my phone paired, while I was riding shotgun. That both phone and sound systems are both Sony did not matter. The Sync system is like a young dog, willing to pair with everything. 
Once paired, voice control allows you to speak your commands, like "Radio, turn off!"

The best thing

The best thing in the B-Max hides under the hood. To limit my often effusive praise for Ford’s 1-litre engine, I these days just liken it to a fistful of cream.

But hark ye, it be a sweet Jersey cow’s cream.
And MikeTyson’s fist. 
(So better make that a fistful of chocolate shake -- double thick)
This engine truly is a finely fettled gem of the internal combuster's art. 
All models make sturdy 170 Nm, while the R22,1900 Ambiente has a reasonable work rate of 74 kW; and both the mid-range R246,900 Trend and the R271,900 Titanium B-MAX has a goodness-me 92 kW. (Forty years ago the 1-litre Anglia made a dubious 47kW.) 

The single niggle

For a Fiat Mutipla fiend, the B-MAX’s single niggle are those three back seats. 
Only a trio of the slimmest hips will fit between the hard seat belt buckles. 
Fat adults won't fit and must treat the B-MAX as a two seater in the rear. 
Sorry kids, this means "that fugly Multipla" still rules on the school run.
Dad.