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★★★★★
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“I feel qualified to write this review as I've had my ”

Written on: 31/01/2004 by Breeze (1 review written)

Good Points
Handling
Reliability
Ability to embarrass many costlier, 'better' coupes

Bad Points
Drivers seat doesn't go low enough.
Water leaks in to boot if it's raining.
Brake-fade (only occasionally if driven hard).

General Comments
I feel qualified to write this review as I've had my Ford Puma 1.7 from a year old, drive an 80mile/day commute and with weekend/evening miles I cover about 30K miles year. My Puma has now covered 110K miles and I STILL enjoy driving it and take the 'scenic route' to places and regularly just go out in to the country for a blast along the b-roads.



The handling is superb and there's not many cars that haven't had to back off when the Puma just hangs-on and 'digs-in ' round a bend/roundabout.



My car hasn't broken down at all in all it's 100K miles that I've driven it. Expenses over normal services have been a couple of dampers, a set of brake discs/pads, 2 roll-bar bushes and a steering-rack. The latter was the only expensive item (£400! + fitting) but that's not bad in 3yrs/100K miles and the hard driving I give it!



Water leaking into the boot if you open it when raining (easily remedied... don't open the boot when it's raining!), the driver's seat doesn't sit low enough (and I'm only 5'9") and it can suffer from brake-fade if you drive it like a loon (could be remedied by upgrading to some drilled disks I'd imagine) - these are the only bad points I can think of.

The engine is a gem, especially the sound/acceleration above 4,000 revs when the variable cam thingy kicks-in.

I should really change cars now as I've had it over 3years but I'm still enjoying it and hard pressed to find anything as fun to drive - I've tested Civic Type-R and a Cooper-S but I'm still looking for something else as they're not as good on the b-roads as a Puma.

Even when I do find a new car I'm tempted to keep the Puma to use for fun and maybe the odd track-day.

A top car and what makes it better is most people don't realise how good they are so the look of shock on people's faces when you out-accelerate and out-handle them is classic!

If you haven't driven one then do it soon - quickly down a windy b-road for best effect! :-)