1999 Ford Puma 1.7 16V

[drakkie]

Yes yes,

After crashing my previous car bad twice in the last two months I had to get a new car fast. My Ford Fiesta served me well. Almost one-and-a-half years and near to 85.000km's. It had to grow on me a bit but after a while I even started to like it.

Unfortunately two months ago the trouble started. I went off in a fast corner. Mud on the road, understeer, abrupt throttle off, oversteer.. Skidding, lamp post.. safe... lamp post BANG. Frontal at 40 km/h. Total damage €2150 to the car and 1800 for a new post. Good insurance covered the damage for me, but it was €50 from economic write-off.

A few weeks back. Freshly repaired car. Kind of sleepy on the way to The Hague. At a dangerous and busy intersection of highways. I was changing lanes and looking in my mirror for a second. All of a sudden an accident happened in front of me. Slammed the brakes. Juuuust blocking - unblocking the tires. But it was just too short. Damnit not again.. BANG! In the back of a BMW 1-series. Total score ? €5250 damage to the Fiesta. Game over.

After crash #1 I was slowly looking for a new ride. Now it had to go quicker. I got a decent €3000 for the old car. The exact amount I once paid for it.. Combined with some savings it resulted in the €4250 bill for my fun-machine!

The purchase is a 1999 Ford Puma. Small 2+2 seater + Big engine + Great chassis = Fun. It's done 130.740 km's when I got it delivered three weeks ago. Now it's standing at 132.910km'w allready. The 1.7 litre engine delivers 125hp and 155Nm to the front wheels. Weighing in at just 1020kg's it is pretty fast. Top speed is 215km/h and 0-100km/h is over in 8 seconds. All this and still doing 8l/100km. Nice!

I got a pretty basic model. Only luxury is a radio and electric windows. Good! That keeps it nice and light! Well enough talking. Enjoy the first few pictures I took.

Sjoerd

[Ferrer]

Except for the rather tasteless decals, great choice!

We had one ages ago, it was exaclty like the Mini only cheaper and with worse build quality.

[drakkie]

Except for the rather tasteless decals, great choice!

We had one ages ago, it was exaclty like the Mini only cheaper and with worse build quality.

Hate it or love it. I kind of like it, but many others don't (including my girl)..Build quality is horrible. It's squeking all over the place even after many new rubbers and interior panels fixed..

[Ferrer]

Hate it or love it. I kind of like it, but many others don't (including my girl)..Build quality is horrible. It's squeking all over the place even after many new rubbers and interior panels fixed..

In ours after 50.000km the interior door panel started falling off.

[Wouter Melissen]

That's a pretty rare car; I hope there are enough spare body-panels available.

[drakkie]

In ours after 50.000km the interior door panel started falling off.

Haha mine is rattling too. For now it's fixed by duct tape on the side. Invisible when it's closed. There are just 3 screws for the entire panel, in the center of it. The sides bend out a bit and come loose from the plastic retainers.. Great.

That's a pretty rare car; I hope there are enough spare body-panels available.

Yea. Just 1900 left in our country. Body panels and parts in general are a real bugger. But offcourse if you search hard enough you can find everything. Let's hope I don't get into the situation that I need panels in the first place..

[baddabang]

Holy wheel gap...

[Roy Visser]

I remember those things doing just over 200kmh and 0-100kmh in over 9 seconds

nice purchase though, take care of it, they are pretty rare, especcially with those factory standard decals, which look horrible, but are original, so should be left on

[LotusLocost]

Nice car.
Since you now have owned it almost a month, have you crashed it yet?

[drakkie]

Nice car.
Since you now have owned it almost a month, have you crashed it yet?

Not yet. And that in icy / snowy conditions. Done about 3500km's in 5 weeks now. I do have a noisy wheel bearing left front. This weekend a replacement will come.

[Ferrer]

How's it been so far then?

[drakkie]

How's it been so far then?

Great fun! Unfortunately the sporty tires don't do very well in the snowy conditions recently. The few days it's clean I love it. Handling is just so incredible. It corners very nice, most understeer but when going to extremes a bit of oversteer as well.

Fuel consumption on the daily run (100km per day) is about 1l : 14km so actually cheaper than my Fiesta(1:11). This includes about 1 hour / day idling in traffic..

[LotusLocost]

Great fun! Unfortunately the sporty tires don't do very well in the snowy conditions recently. The few days it's clean I love it. Handling is just so incredible. It corners very nice, most understeer but when going to extremes a bit of oversteer as well.

Have you driven it to these "extremes" on track?
If not, it's no wonder that you crash and total your cars within a few months of ownership..

[drakkie]

Have you driven it to these "extremes" on track?
If not, it's no wonder that you crash and total your cars within a few months of ownership..

Yes. I did. My internship causes me to be on a track at least once a week to test a car. The connections you make this way can be very handy and fun in the weekends On the road I drive a bit more careful now. The limit of this car is so far away in the dry that it's plain stupid to even try and find it on public roads. Apart from that, there are days my top speed is 50km/h.. Traffic is horrible here. On the ice however you will get the same effects àt much lower speeds. So yes, then it does happen once in a while that it oversteer a little bit. I'm running on relative low tire pressure at the back at the moment to prevent it mostly.


ps: the Fiesta I owned for 1,5 years before making the crashes, not a few months. One was driver error, one was pure bad luck..

[drakkie]

And today my brake got stuck. Luckily around the corner of my uncle. It's there at the moment, without front suspension. Decided to do some maintenance (bearings, driveshafts, brakes) after fixing the problem.