MLC-PM

My 1.7 Puma was ok (& a lot of fun), but I'm sure it would have been blown away by an S.

I know the racing Puma's had a bit of grunt, but it should have been obvious if it was one of those with all the flared wheel arches & stuff.

moff

4motions are a pile of crap. I think the only reason that it managed to do well was because it was driven by a good driver and has got 4wd. They are soooo heavy with 4WD and a big 2.8 litre engine, and do not have sports suspension as they were meant as motorway cruisers. The S3 is understeer city and is lighter than the Golf, so I can't see why it would be any different.

Puma's have have always had great reviews for superb handling, but they are just Fiesta's and look very weird. Girls car too.

Blurter

Mrs Blurter had a 1.7 Puma from new. Engine and gearbox were ace, but I found the driving position shite. Got shut cause of reliability problems (it's a Ford!).

Since going Japanese we've never looked back

Adit

I've got to disagree about the reliability thing...yep its a Ford....but over 2 years of driving it hard.... the only thing that happened; is a bolt plug (a piece of plastic that hides the bolt on the wiper arm) disapeared. I agree with the driving position though!

zero_to60

I had a full tank of fuel and the addition of a 14 stone passenger so I was carrying quite a weight penalty

Sundance Kid

The Puma has a lot of tweaks over the Fiesta, which already has class leading handling.
It is NOT a Fiesta with a Coupe body shell like the Tirga is a Corsa Coupe.

The Puma got 5 Stars in Evo mag with the conclusion '+' everything and '-' nothing

DuggE

I've owned a Puma and a Fiesta Zetec-S and I thought the chassis was extremely impressive. If only Ford had got their arse in gear and selected a more potent engine that had some real power these cars could have been serious ,serious fun.

ChrisWells

My son bought one yesterday, impressive.

C7BLE

My wife had a 1.7 Puma before the CTR and it was a fantastic very under rated little car
Great handling (wasn't Jackie Stewart consultant on the set up?)
Visiblity was Kerrrap though, had a nasty blind spot on the a pillar and the rear window was like a WW1 machine gunners nest

Speed wise though it slaughtered GTis convincingly and although it was 123bhp if the road had twists it was scary fast

the brakes didn't quite match the chassis in my opinion (drums on the rear!!!!) which sometimes made for a frightening experience

Gear change was excellent too

docbry

I had a 1.7 puma before the s2000, it was bags of fun extremely chuckable and you can rev the tits off them, the s is considerably quicker though.
i recently persuaded my girlfriend to buy one, now got to persuade her to stop changing gear at 4000 rpm ("it sounds like its hurting the engine" )