The Ford Puma ST Will Soon Be A Thing

When Ford first revealed the new Puma crossover, we pondered whether or not the Blue Oval would slot in the Fiesta ST’s 197bhp 1.5-litre inline-three. A few months on, turns out it’s happening - a Puma ST has been spied at the Nurburgring.

As is the way with the Internet, we’ve already seen how an ST’d Puma should look via Photoshop maestros like X-Tomi Design. The specs shouldn’t be hard to work out either - we suspect the output of the boosted triple will stay at 197bhp and 214lb ft of torque.

A slightly porkier weight figure may blunt acceleration slightly, but we don’t think the Puma ST will be far behind the 6.5-second 0-62mph sprint managed by the hottest Fiesta. Plus, since the ride height isn’t too lofty, dynamics shouldn’t be affected too much.

Given how much of a riot the Fiesta ST is to drive, the Puma ST could end up being the fast crossover to have. At the moment, we’d probably put the VW T-Roc R at the top of the pile, but the performance version of the Puma could well knock it off its perch.

Price-wise, the expectation is for it to sit at around £30,000, undercutting the (admittedly larger) T-Roc and the related Audi SQ2.

It might not quite be the Ford Racing Puma successor we’d ideally like, but in any case, our interest has been piqued.