Ford Racing Puma Is 10

The Ford Racing Puma celebrates its 10th birthday – but will it be a future classic?

The special Puma first appeared at the 1999 Geneva show as a concept called the Puma ST160, before being rubber-stamped for limited production later that year named the Racing Puma.

Only 500 were produced in a single year for sale only in the UK, all individually numbered on the modified 1.7 Zetec-SE engine’s unique inlet manifold.

The FRP produced 155 bhp from its naturally-aspirated 1.7-litres, up around 30 bhp from standard, and featured a wider track front and rear with bulbous arches covering 17-inch Speedline multi-spokes.

It also had discs all-round, Sparco bucket seats and an Alcantara-trimmed (blue) interior, and all Racing Pumas were modified using standard 1.7 Pumas as a base by previous Ford-collaborators Tickford, who helped create the Tickford Capri, Sierra RS500 and the RS200.

Perhaps because of this convoluted manufacturing process, the price was a tad high at £23,000 new – some £8000 more than a standard 1.7.

Partially because of this, less than half were sold to customers during the FRP’s production cycle, although a cult following has cropped up in recent years. But the question is… Is the Racing Puma a future classic? Discuss this on the Classic Ford Forum! Click here

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.