First Drive: 2021 Ford Puma ST Review

Proper driving enthusiasts aren’t meant to like crossovers. Sure, the car-buying masses love them but for those who remember the age before SUV ride heights the whiff of style over content, the compromises in dynamics and visibility and the inevitable fashion tax tend to inspire snootiness from those who still consider themselves into cars. Thankfully a good number of the latter seem to work at Ford Performance and they’ve taken the already impressive basis of the Ford Puma and turned it into a proper little hooligan with all the spirit of the Fiesta ST from which it takes its foundations.

You can tell quite a lot about a car from the people who created it and, in the case of Ford Performance Manager Stefan Muenzinger, expectations the Puma ST won’t drive like your typical crossover are raised. The last time we met he was enthusing about the Shelby GT350 he’d bought while on secondment to Detroit and brought back to Germany with him. This time the discussion is – inevitably – online rather than in person but involves much geekery about damping rates, steering racks and their decision to do a chunk of the sign-off work here in the UK, specifically on the brutally choppy moorland roads outside Manchester. By a stroke of luck that’s exactly where we end up driving the ST too.

On the basis you’re probably familiar with the basics of the Puma let’s look at the changes Stefan and his team have made. The Fiesta ST’s 200PS (147kW) 1.5-litre turbocharged three-cylinder engine and manual gearbox are carried over, albeit with a shorter final drive and torque raised from 290Nm (214lb ft) to 320Nm (236lb ft) to offset the bigger wheels and extra 75kg the Puma carries. With the Performance Pack it gets the same Quaife torque-biasing diff (a proprietary mechanical limited-slip diff, to all intents and purposes), launch control and other goodies. Suspension remains twist-beam at the back, albeit a whole 40 per cent burlier than the Fiesta while the same directionally wound ‘force-vectoring’ springs keep it laterally stiff too. The Ferrari-fast 11.4:1 steering rack is even quicker than that on the Fiesta and, the more you hear from Stefan, the more you appreciate this is way more serious than anything else in its class.

More good news comes when it turns out the £1,900 price hike triggered by post-Brexit uncertainties has been successfully addressed by carefully scrutinising rules of origin in the supply chain. That thankfully narrows the gap between the £26,700 you’d pay for a five-door Fiesta ST-3 and the £29,455 for the Puma with the essential £950 Performance Pack.

In the ST-Line trim we tested previously the Puma was already sportier than the average crossover, Mean Green paint your only real option for setting the ST apart. Other than that the 19-inch wheels optional on other Pumas are standard and you get black bits for the roof, grille surround, mirror caps and spoiler. From the rear three-quarter view the ST is a mean, muscular looking machine and one of the more successful sporting crossovers at any price point. At the front there’s a lot of metal between the top of the wheel and the bonnet, the high-set lights making it look permanently startled. It does help the driver, though, the peaks in the wings meaning you have a neat visual reference for the Puma’s extremities and real confidence in its road position, which is just as handy in the supermarket car-park as it is at maximum attack B-road pace. You’ll also appreciate the grippy Recaros on the latter, the ST’s position at the top of the range meaning it gets the best interior trim in the range, all things relative.   

The fact the standard Puma handles better than most crossovers means the Ford Performance team had a fair amount of headroom. Good news? They’ve made the most of it. From the off it’s certainly got a ton of front-end, both in terms of grip and response. Thank the super-fast steering, grippy Michelin PS4 tyres (wider than the Fiesta’s) and stiffened up rear beam for that, the Puma darting for the apex more enthusiastically than any high-riding crossover has a right to. This gives the keen driver plenty to work with, too. If perhaps not as playful as the Fiesta you can get on the throttle very early in the corner and feel the diff wanting to unwind the steering and get the power down. The wheel writhes in your hands and hunts for cambers a little when doing so, but not so much as to be annoying or scary. It just lets you know the diff is working and you soon enjoy the way it hooks the nose into the bends before hauling you out again, the ST very much a car you drive on the throttle. Which is probably for the best, given the brakes are on the grabby side.

The engine might be half as big again as the 1.0-litre in the regular Puma but the aluminium block means it weighs the same over the nose and, overall, the ST only carries an extra 10kg over the Mild Hybrid version. It sounds good too, with fruity rasp on the outside and a bit of extra piped-in noise when you’re in the racier driving modes inside. Whether it’s the mapping or Ford has just got a bit smarter with its calibration there seems to be less ‘rev hang’ between shifts than the Fiesta, too, making the Puma feel much more responsive and fun when you’re flicking the stumpy little shifter to and fro. That 200PS (147kW) might not sound too much on paper compared with the bigger and more powerful T-Roc R and Mini Countryman JCW you might consider rivals but these are very healthy horses indeed. Whether the rest of the occupants will be quite so thrilled at how it eggs you on is open to question, but at least the capability is there if you get some quality time to yourself and suitable terrain to enjoy it.

To that end, Stefan and the team made the most of their set-up time on those bumpy British roads, the Puma feeling alert, agile and on its toes while simultaneously stable and predictable even over challenging bumps and cambers. This is some compensation for a rather brutal set-up at lower speeds. But, saying that, most crossovers have pretty rubbish ride around town anyway and none of them would see which way the ST went on a twisty road. So you’re not really losing out here.

Ford interiors are best described as functional and if you’re a sucker for big touchscreens, snazzy design and all the latest button-free tech then you’re probably better off elsewhere. The black surfaces and upholstery feel pretty sombre, the Recaro branding on the seats and little ST badges lifting the ambience a little but not by enough to make it feel special. Actually, though, functional isn’t such a bad thing and, while there may be a lot of them, the physical buttons are logical and easy to operate. Space-wise for all the talk of crossover practicality and a bit of extra wheelbase you never forget the Fiesta foundations and rear-seat room is on the cosy side. The multi-level boot floor and nifty Megabox storage in the boot are really neat, though, the latter meaning you can chuck muddy wellies in without a care and even hose them off in situ if you so desire.

As per the regular Puma here, the ST’s range-topping position meaning it gets the Comfort Pack with heated seats and steering wheel (the latter very welcome at the time of our test) as standard, the thumping B&O premium sound system also included. A Driver Assistance Pack of electronic nannies is £900 if you feel the need for it, the fact the ST is manual only meaning you don’t get the Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop and Go included on automatic Pumas elsewhere in the range. Credit to Ford, its sensor-driven finger wagging and wheel grabbing is less intrusive than that in other brands and, if you want to be left to your own devices, opting for the ST’s Race mode disables pretty much everything.

Ford tends to go all-in with its performance products but, even so, the Puma ST is a refreshingly uncompromising vision of how hardcore you can go with a hot crossover, to the point it may actually have created a new niche of its own. Truth be told, it’ll possibly be a bit much for many people. But if there’s only space in the household for one car it’s nice to know there’s an option enthusiasts can choose while observing the need for something family friendly and practical. The Fiesta ST remains more appealing for the fact it’s cheaper, lighter and more playful but the Puma ST retains probably 90 per cent of this character in a more fashionable and useful package. In that sense it’s a welcome twist on fast Ford traditions.