Ford S-Max: When it was first launched, the S-Max smacked of overkill. With just 50mm between it and the bigger Galaxy - and both available in seven-seat format - it seemed like a large metal monument to indecisiveness within Ford management.
True there was a price difference, but when you added in the extra cost of the third row of seats in the S-Max - between €760 and €810 depending on engine size - then the price difference came down to a couple of thousand euro.
Yet there's more to the S-Max than the missing 50mm. For a start the S-Max is at most a 5+2 seating format rather than a full seven-seater. In practical terms that means those under five-foot can fit in the back but after that you'll need an angle grinder to cut them out of the seat. In the Galaxy you could fit a six-footer back there without them scraping their head off the roof.
So Ford has come out with two cars that differ in terms of the very back seats. Hardly revolutionary.
Yet there's more to it than that. While the Galaxy has grown into a fully-fledged people carrier, Ford needed something a little more discrete to compete with the likes of the Opel Zafira and Renault Grand Scenic.
Enter the S-Max. Not only is it €4,000 less than the Galaxy but it's also far more sporting. That's something that will certainly appeal to the people carrier set.
Every week we get our regular emails from despairing motorists, keen to fulfil all their family duties and carry kith and kin to football practice and dance classes. For all that, they implore us to come up with a motoring solution that doesn't mean they have to become fully-fledged minibus drivers. A typical query goes: "You're supposed to know what you're talking about, for God's sake. Suggest a car that handles like a Ferrari yet can ferry my multiplying family around all day. And I need an answer yesterday."
My responses have normally been as useful as a family planning advisor at a sextuplet christening. At last, Ford has come up with something that at least offers some respite to ever-put-upon parents. Of course, it's still not truly sporting, but Ford deserves credit for trying. The reality is that these cars have to be hatchbacks, have to be long and if the rear seat passengers don't plan to roll up into a ball, then they have to be tall all the way to the rear door.
The S-Max is perhaps as sporting in demeanour as you can get in a people carrier without featuring in an episode of Pimp My Ride. The square lines have been smoothed out and there are nice little air ducts at the back of the front wheels. They don't actually do much in terms of performance, but they look good; certainly better than trying to put a wind spoiler on the bootlid.
You can't change the laws of physics and the S-MAX is still a big one-box people mover, but it does its best to fool you into thinking it's a saloon when behind the wheel. It's very neat indeed in and out of tight corners and its suspension - a MacPherson strut/multi-link design - offers quicker responses and precise handling than its competitors. Body roll, pitch and wallow are also very well contained.
Inside, Ford has opted for silver-coloured plastic for the central console. This lightens up the cabin, though the plastics could be of a better quality. The new handbrake feature - akin to the power lever on an aircraft - is similar to that in a Renault Megane and while it's very stylish and modern, takes up a lot of space unnecessarily.
The gear lever, however, is perfectly to hand and the high seating position is comfortable and aids all-round visibility, if not quite as good as that in the Galaxy.
The engine range starts with a 1.8-litre diesel, but you would really need this 2-litre diesel to justify the very basis for the S-Max - that people carriers can still be fun to drive. The entry-level 1.8-litre diesel may well be the big seller in Ireland, but it's likely to be more functional than fun.
We'd like to use this review to raise one more issue regarding people carriers: the tonneau covers. For all the flexibility and user-friendly seats, car companies - and not just Ford - continue to offer unwieldy tonneau covers that fold back into a solid thick plastic beam, only slightly narrower than the car itself. Of course it's a very practical device when you've got a secret stash of luggage you want to hide from prying eyes. Yet if you use the seven seats, just where are you meant to store it? Invariably your rear passengers end up with it at their feet. The big threat to S-Max comes from the new Citroën C4 Picasso. Once upon a time the Opel Zafira was king of the mid-size seven seaters and its flexible seven-seat format was the best thing on the market. These days such systems are standard fit on most models.
Ford is making a determined pitch to overthrow the king. Before it's arrival, Toyota has come closest so far with the Corolla Verso, but Ford adds more driving fun and a soupçon of styling to this traditionally functional market.
The king, admittedly, has a trick up its sleeve: Opel still has the edge in that its seats fold into the floor without gaps to the footwells.
The S-Max is the best attempt at balancing driving pleasure and people carrying practicality, but at the same time, if space comes through as the key priority and you've come to face the reality of having more than three children then you're still better off buying a Galaxy.
Put the extra €4,000 down to yet another cost of family life.
