Considering the 500L MPW’s small size, its safety levels are quite high. Although the MPW hasn’t been tested by the technicians at Euro NCAP, the shorter 500L has and scored a full five stars.

Standardised Fiat 500L MPW safety features include six airbags, with two up front, a pair at the side and a couple running the length of the window line. A driver’s knee airbag is optional. Additionally, ABS, an electronic stability system and up to seven three-point seatbelts, with Isofix mountings on the outer two of the middle row of seats complete the picture.

Optional safety kit can be specified at extra cost, with the ‘City Brake Control’ likely to be a popular and welcome addition. Constantly monitoring the road for objects in the car’s path, the system automatically brakes the car in order to avoid a collision. Insurance companies are starting to take such systems into account and may reduce premiums for cars fitted with it.

Also useful given the 500L MPW’s size is the availability of rear parking sensors and a reversing camera that’s mounted in the central zero of the 500 badge on the tailgate.

By definition, a multi-purpose wagon has to be flexible or there’s little point in buying one. Sensibly, for the Fiat 500L MPW practicality was the designers’ mantra.

Fiat claims the MPW has the greatest amount of interior volume for a car of this class, with the feeling of spaciousness being backed up by the tape measure. In seven-seater mode the boot can hold 168 litres of luggage, useful enough for about five supermarket carrier bags.

Flip the levers on the seat backs and the 50/50 third row of seats fold flat into the boot floor increasing capacity to 638 litres of uncluttered loads space. The wide tailgate opens high, with a wide opening and a low loading lip making loading and unloading a painless experience.

Need more space? Then fold the middle row of seats, split in a 60/40 configuration, both flat to the boot floor line, or, with an additional handle pull, tipping forwards against the front seats. Not only is boot space now a gigantic 1,584 litres but the load bed is now 2.6m long.

It’s not finished their either as the front passenger seat tips forwards to accommodate even longer loads. Fitted with a hard plastic covering, not only is the seat back protected from the worst a visit to the DIY centre can throw at it, it usefully doubles as a table top.

If the space wasn’t appealing enough, the ‘Cargo Magic Space’ system allows you to partition the boot off, separating fragile and heavy items from each other, or simply keeping dirty things from clean ones.

Spending time inside the 500L MPW will give you the opportunity to familiarise yourself with the location of all 22 cubby holes, with the air conditioned upper glovebox, large enough to chill two 500ml drinks bottles, being especially welcome at the height of summer.