The Box Of Delights
by David Finlay (22 May 08)

If I'm to be brutally honest - and I trust you would expect nothing less of me - I wasn't expecting to like the Materia anywhere near as much as I did. Perhaps this is because I'm a country boy; my local friends all live in villages and small towns, and in many cases in isolated houses with no visible neighbours, and their immediate reaction to the car was far from positive. Somehow it just doesn't fit into the rural scene.

But I collected the Materia in the Big City, where its first job was to transport me to and from a meeting. And I found myself thinking, yes, this is right - I'm in a car which is quirky enough to be something of a fashion statement without looking entirely ridiculous, and it feels at home here.

It's not just about the looks. Apart from the blind spots - which are vast, especially at the rear thanks to those ludicrously wide C pillars - the Materia is fantastically easy to drive in town. All the controls are light and responsive, and the only reason I had occasional trouble with the clutch is that I'm six foot three and there isn't quite enough legroom in the front for me.

Other than that, the Materia is spacious to an extent you simply would not believe at a first glance. With the driver's seat set up for me (in other words as far back as it would go), I could sit immediately behind it with an almost comical amount of room to spare. I'm not joking when I say that the amount of room back there is comparable to what you'll find in the rear of a long-wheelbase Jaguar XJ.

The driving position is slightly van-like (not that that's a problem - I've driven several very comfortable vans) and the view is good, as long as you're actually looking through glass. Since you don't drop very far to get into it, I'd say that the Materia would be a good prospect for drivers who, shall we say, aren't quite as supple as they once were.

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