The Multimac is a new product designed specifically for mums and dads with three or more children.
You no longer need to fit three or four car seats (or, try to) in your car - the Multimac is a range of 3 and 4-seater child seats to fit in the back of a normal 5-seat car, meaning you don't need to upgrade your car when your third or fourth child comes along.
Multimac Tether straps are bolted on to the existing rear seat belt buckle mountings, leaving the adult belts in place. The Multimac can then be fitted or removed in about a minute, allowing the car to still carry adults normally.
Newborns need to be seated in the Minimac, which is removable. The Minimac baby cradle will only fit ‘Club’ and ‘Superclub’ widths.
Tested by John Temple, father to five-year-old triplet boys. He said:
‘My first impressions of the Multimac seats were that they looked a bit like a prototype – they were very industrial looking. The support struts that came out from the seats down to the floor looked like a potential hazard – I imagined lots of bruised knees from my triplets jumping in and out of the car.
‘Normally a car seat looks designed for comfort and ergonomics, but this did just look like a big bench.
‘However, we didn’t have any accidents or bashed knees at all, despite appearances. They didn’t look particularly comfortable, but the children seemed perfectly happy. We had no complaints from them on a long journey, and they fell asleep happily just as they do in their normal car seats.
‘The boys thought it was very exciting when they saw the seats for the first time. They liked that we didn’t have to fiddle in-between their seats to fix them in place.
‘They also loved the sense of independence they had from being able to buckle themselves in; however, I was worried that this meant they could also un-do the fastenings themselves, too – there was no child-proofing of the fastenings.
‘The two shoulder straps were good – the children thought they were much more comfortable than the normal one strap.
‘At first I was concerned about the quality of the seats and the headrests in particular seemed a bit flimsy, but in practice they seemed robust and sturdy, and the obviously pass all the relevant regulations.
‘In terms of the price, I think this would be out of our reach. It definitely is cheaper than buying a new car if you can only fit two car seats in your current car. However, we had to buy nine car seats – one set for me, one set for my wife, and one set for my parents - and we were happy to buy a new car when the triplets arrived as a matter of course. For some families this would be an ideal option, even if it’s not ideal for us.’
Reviewed by Mr & Mrs Clark, parents to quads. They said:
The Clark quads were conceived by IVF after Mr and Mrs Clark tried conceiving naturally for 10 years without luck. During the IVF treatment only 1 egg was able to be implanted and it split into triplets and one of the triplets into twins – and voila 4 babies from 1 egg.
Fast forward 2.5 years and Justin Clark had a big struggle – ‘how do you fit 4 car seats into a car?’
Justin chose a small five-seater Soda Fabia for his family of 6. In steps the Multimac, allowing all four children to be seated comfortably in their car seats without needing to upgrade to a larger car.
‘Everything in our life has to be multi-sized and multipack, but when it comes to the car we’ve been able to downsize thanks to the Multimac’, said Justin.
Choosing the Skoda Fabia with a 4 seater Multimac means Justin and his family reduce their carbon footprint and have more boot space for bags and prams than in a seven-seater car.
See photos of the Clark quads sitting comfortably in their Multimac car seats above.
Visit multimac.co.uk
Product Information
The original Multimac range comes in the following models 1320, 1260, 1200 (4 seaters) & 1000, 930 (3 seater). Each individual berth is either ‘club’ or ‘standard’ width, each of which will take headrest accessories, and a child up to 12 years (36kg).