Ford Puma Racing Puma

Based on the Mk4 Fiesta, the Puma was a 2 door coupe built from 1997 until 2002 in Fords Cologne factory in Germany. The standard cars had a new body, new engines, stiffer suspension, wider track and close ratio gearboxes. Its closest rival was the Vauxhall Tigra. Unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show 1999, The Ford Puma RS concept was designed by the Ford Puma Race And Rally Programme to show how this technology could be transferred to a road car. Launched for production as the Ford Racing Puma (FRP), Tickford in the UK were assigned to build a limited run of 1,000 cars, 500 for Germany and 500 for the UK but just 500 cars were built for the UK only. Sales were slow, of these 500 UK cars, less than half found owners due to the high price of £23,000 - a more powerful Subaru Impreza with Pro Drive pack and proven rally pedigree was just £21,000! The remaining cars were registered and assigned as Ford management vehicles and eventually sold on via their used car programme. All Ford Racing Puma cars were finished in Imperial Blue metallic paintwork. Inside, the racing theme continued with blue Alcantara clad Sparco racing seats, the blue alcantara was continued to the door cards, the rear seats and the steering wheel, the front seats were embroidered with the 'Ford Racing' emblem. Powered by a 4 cylinder 1.7ltr engine the Ford Racing Puma produced 155HP. The vehicle track was wider than the standard Puma and the 17'' Mim Speedline alloy wheels were covered with widened wings, aluminium at the front and steel at the rear. Stig Blomqvist helped develop the suspension - the wider track and uprated springs and dampers improved an already great set up. Braking was by Alcon with 4 pot race derived calipers finished in blue up front with 295mm discs and 253mm discs to the rear. Our beautiful car, number 65/500, is very rare due to it having only 2 lady owners from new with a warranted mileage of just 21,800. The first owner took delivery upon registration in March 2000 and the second from August 2001, keeping the car for 17 years, reluctantly selling due to the passing of her husband. Most low mileage cars such as this have had periods of storage, this is an exception. For the first few years up to around 2008, the car averaged approx 3,000 miles per annum and after that the mileage was kept down to a few hundred leisure miles per year, the lady owner really was a petrol head and always had a high performance car as her daily driver. This car is all original spec other than the fitting of a stainless steel exhaust supplied by Puma Build in 2008. Every MOT is present from the 1st one in 2003 to present day. Also, every service bill is in the history file, even down to the AA visiting the car on 2 occasions - both breakdowns due to a flat battery. The handbook is complete even down to the Racing Puma supplement book and the radio code, the car still has the supplying Ford dealer tax disc holder & key ring and the spare key is present. It is estimated that only half of the original build are still around. Offered as a usable investment, our car is stunning in all respects. It is a very rare low mileage example of an already rare car. Most importantly, all the documentation is present to be of interest to any serious Ford collector. Please note, the wheel centre caps were tatty and with OE unavailable we are having the originals centres replicated as close as possible to original and they will be fitted in due course. We welcome any inspection.