Ford’s next small SUV destined for markets other than their U.S. is the Puma. This is a highly anticipated ride that steals the name of an affordable sports car from the past. We have been a bit sad that the Puma won’t land in the States and have thought that Ford should replace the slow-selling EcoSport with the Puma globally.
Ford Puma fans have only a couple of days before the SUV is revealed fully. Ford Romania has posted a Facebook teaser that calls out the premier as being on June 26th. The teaser is short and shows a pixelated Ford Puma with digital squares falling off of it.
Ford has teased the Puma already giving us a better look at the SUV at an event held in Amsterdam earlier this year, and it looks exciting in what we could see of it. It looks somewhat like a close competitor size-wise to the strange little Nissan Juke. Anyone wondering why Ford Romania is teasing the Puma, the little crossover will be built at the plant in Craiova, Dolji.
Speculation suggests that the Puma will have a 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine under the hood with a version expected using a 48-volt mild-hybrid system. An ST version is expected and has been spied in camo. The top-of-the-line version of the Puma is expected to have 155 horsepower. Ford has stated that it currently has no plans to bring the Ford Puma to the U.S. However, it knows that it needs some affordable SUVs to replace the cars it killed off in the States and the EcoSport isn’t selling strongly fueling rumors that the Puma might eventually come to the U.S. The official debut was previously tipped for Geneva.
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Source: Motor1
Comments
I don’t think it should replace EcoSport. The market is sub-divided now. EcoSPort can actually go offroad quite well now, and it just needs to be re-designed to look the part, while Puma should be the cheap city CUV that is styed in that manner.
We may not get the Puma, but I bet we get something similar in the future, likely plug in.