In the late 90s, Italy built the six-seater Fiat Multipla compact people mover into a vehicle so aesthetically challenging that the whole world still talks about it today. America? This is the land of the Corvette, where you can have one with a hypercar-rivaling 1,000 HP for half of what an entry-level Ferrari would cost new. But what about France? Well this country loves both the said vehicles and has even mixed them into one for the reasonable sum of $1.1 million. Enter the 1000tipla, which comes from the heights of French Youtubing.
We first covered project 1000tipla (that’s almost “Multipla” in French, where “thousand” is spelled “mille”) back in April. Built via a $1.1M crowdfunding campaign started by the pair of vloggers behind the Vilebrequin YouTube channel, this has now reached its final form, having been unveiled in a video released just hours ago.
Meanwhile, as the Youtubers completed the project—it’s actually 95% done, but we’ll get to that below—their channel went from 1.72 to 1.85 million subscribers. And some other things happened. For one, Kei Miura, the founder of Japanese label Tra Kyoto, completed the one-off Pandem Rocket Bunny kit for the vehicle and shipped it to them.
Of course, fitting the body of a 20-year-old Fiat to the rolling chassis of a C7 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 wasn’t exactly a plug and play job (we could say the same about this also-French-built Rolls-Royce Phantom 6×6). But the vloggers turned to a shop called W-Autosport for that and you’re now looking at the painted result.
This is the final color scheme of the Fiat 1000tipla
The guys aren’t trained in the technical stuff, but it seems they’re trying to get there. So, while the second part of the clip below showcased the 1000tipla, the first part sees the vloggers spending some time in the paint booth.
Another Japanese company that got on board with the project is Rays Wheels, which reportedly created their largest-offest units for the car, which are now wrapped in 325/30 R19 Michelin tires.
Speaking of which, blue and yellow, the dominant colors present on the vehicle, stand for Michelin’s identity, since the tire producer became the main sponsor of the project. And while there’s also a splash of white in there, one could always see an appeal to peace in the first two colors.
Oh, and the funny body parts certain backers sent to the guys as signatures that would appear on the vehicle (19:32 timestamp)? Just Google “dickbutt Ferrari” and you’ll see how the Italian F1 team got trolled in similar fashion for the 2015 season.
Vilebrequin’s massive following quickly took to the comments section of the clip. And while certain people weren’t pleased with a crowdfunded project taking a big sponsor on board with its name on the car, the majority of comments seem to be positive. For one, people suggest the 1000tipla should end up in racing games—it seems that an independent effort has already brought the machine to Assetto Corsa, but the avid gamers among you will have to check that out on their own.
Why did it cost hypercar money?
Now, in case the seven-figure nature of the project sent your eyebrows towards the roof, we’ll remind you we covered the cost breakdown in our previous story and it appears that only about a third of the cash went into the actual car.
The goal here seems to be creating a circuit machine. And the contraption seems to have the aero, rubber, power and chassis for it. And, to make pitstops quick, it even comes with four built-in air jacks, like a proper racer. Of course, before hitting the track, the boys still have certain details to sort out.
For one, it seems that the Italian side of the build doesn’t stop at Fiat, since the guys mention that the supercharged 6.2L LT4 is getting a… Pagani-inspired exhaust. And we’ll find out more in August, since they guys are now taking a vacation.
Update: The Fiat Multipla “1000tipla” has now reached its final v1.0 form, with the 1,300 hp minivan hitting the track hard.
