Well my Puma story began way back in October 2006 with a Moondust Silver 1.7, which is also when I first started talking to Dal.
Sadly the relationship with that car didn't get too far off of the ground, but it had set off a love for the Puma!
Clearly the only suitable replacement would be another Puma! and so, I ended up with a great Melina Blue 1.7.
Another low mileage example, we travelled for work and pleasure together, attending shows and meets wherever possible.
During that ownership Dal and I decided that there was room for another owners club to exist, I had already bought the domain name for projectpuma.com because I was going to write up a project about the transformation of a standard Puma in to an FRP replica (which at the time I was obsessed by), so I repurposed it for the forum, creating a highly customised phpbb version 2 board in 2007.
We had great times over the subsequent years of ownership, more meets, more events.
My stand out memories are of the shows Fiesta In The Park and Ford Fair, the local meets where we'd go around locally planned routes with a stop somewhere for a spot of lunch and then the annual meets, the club anniversary meets which were held near to the end of each show season and the Christmas dinner (which was more about the food and people than the cars).
In 2009 I finally fulfilled my Puma aspirations and became the custodian of Racing Puma #0201
Here's a photo of the butt of my brother’s old FRP #0165 from the 2 year anniversary meet in 2009, following me in #0201.
and at the 3 year anniversary meet, with Jackos old car.
#0201 car was my pride and joy, I wish I'd been able to keep it forever.
In 2011 however, following a year 'managing' with the FRP after the birth of our daughter, it was clear that it was too difficult to live with day to day (if you've owned one with a baby, you'll know that the seats only tilt and have to be manually slid forwards, not tilt and slide like the standard ones do, so it's an effort getting the car seats in and out!) and so since budgets did not allow for keeping it as a weekend car, it was sold to make way for a more family suitable car.
Since 2011 I've not managed to get back to Puma ownership, I attended some of the local meets but typically by motorcycle. I've looked at them on and off over the years but the time, or the cars were never right. Now here in 2023 I don't see it happening, I'd held out hope of regaining ownership of #0201 - I check in on it from time to time, it hasn't changed owners since it was transferred in 07/2011, it was MOT'd until 16/04/2013 and has been SORN since. I did speak to the owner post sale because it still has my private registration and we were trying to see if there was a possibility of getting it back. He gave me a brief story behind when it got parked up and as far as I'd guess, it's still there hidden away.
So what am I still doing here?
Well I'm still a Puma enthusiast, so I've been co-administering the forum, moderating it, updating it and trying to keep it online as a source of information for owners new and old.
You may have noticed more major changes around here recently than have been undertaken in the recent past. This has come around as part of the forum changing ownership, I’ve looked after it since bringing it online in 2007 regardless of time, effort, and cost. Now nearly 16 years on, 12 of which were without Puma I’ve made this decision due to recent personal circumstance, but also in the hope that it will secure the future of the board for years to come.
I’d not been sure what to expect from this, but so far, I’ve been impressed with how the transition to the new board software has been undertaken and how consideration was taken to transition the gallery (which was a custom feature of the previous software) to the new ‘media’ area.
Things which I’d not realised had stopped working such as the daily or weekly updates are now being sent again and it’s all been wrapped into a software that’s in keeping with modern usages, specific things I’m enjoying are the emojis, image copy and pasting, more upload options and just feeling more useable.
I hope you’d agree and that you’ll all continue to enjoy the forum long in to the future.
Whilst I’m still welcome to do so by the new owners (Hi @TechAdmin), I’ll be here assisting as usual and making sure people can find those ancient threads that only resurface every few years
I'd like to thank all of the members old and new for their contributions to the forum, asking questions, answering questions, posting back resolutions and just making the place one of the best forums on the Internet.
Sadly the relationship with that car didn't get too far off of the ground, but it had set off a love for the Puma!
Clearly the only suitable replacement would be another Puma! and so, I ended up with a great Melina Blue 1.7.
Another low mileage example, we travelled for work and pleasure together, attending shows and meets wherever possible.
During that ownership Dal and I decided that there was room for another owners club to exist, I had already bought the domain name for projectpuma.com because I was going to write up a project about the transformation of a standard Puma in to an FRP replica (which at the time I was obsessed by), so I repurposed it for the forum, creating a highly customised phpbb version 2 board in 2007.
We had great times over the subsequent years of ownership, more meets, more events.
My stand out memories are of the shows Fiesta In The Park and Ford Fair, the local meets where we'd go around locally planned routes with a stop somewhere for a spot of lunch and then the annual meets, the club anniversary meets which were held near to the end of each show season and the Christmas dinner (which was more about the food and people than the cars).
In 2009 I finally fulfilled my Puma aspirations and became the custodian of Racing Puma #0201
Here's a photo of the butt of my brother’s old FRP #0165 from the 2 year anniversary meet in 2009, following me in #0201.
and at the 3 year anniversary meet, with Jackos old car.
#0201 car was my pride and joy, I wish I'd been able to keep it forever.
In 2011 however, following a year 'managing' with the FRP after the birth of our daughter, it was clear that it was too difficult to live with day to day (if you've owned one with a baby, you'll know that the seats only tilt and have to be manually slid forwards, not tilt and slide like the standard ones do, so it's an effort getting the car seats in and out!) and so since budgets did not allow for keeping it as a weekend car, it was sold to make way for a more family suitable car.
Since 2011 I've not managed to get back to Puma ownership, I attended some of the local meets but typically by motorcycle. I've looked at them on and off over the years but the time, or the cars were never right. Now here in 2023 I don't see it happening, I'd held out hope of regaining ownership of #0201 - I check in on it from time to time, it hasn't changed owners since it was transferred in 07/2011, it was MOT'd until 16/04/2013 and has been SORN since. I did speak to the owner post sale because it still has my private registration and we were trying to see if there was a possibility of getting it back. He gave me a brief story behind when it got parked up and as far as I'd guess, it's still there hidden away.
So what am I still doing here?
Well I'm still a Puma enthusiast, so I've been co-administering the forum, moderating it, updating it and trying to keep it online as a source of information for owners new and old.
You may have noticed more major changes around here recently than have been undertaken in the recent past. This has come around as part of the forum changing ownership, I’ve looked after it since bringing it online in 2007 regardless of time, effort, and cost. Now nearly 16 years on, 12 of which were without Puma I’ve made this decision due to recent personal circumstance, but also in the hope that it will secure the future of the board for years to come.
I’d not been sure what to expect from this, but so far, I’ve been impressed with how the transition to the new board software has been undertaken and how consideration was taken to transition the gallery (which was a custom feature of the previous software) to the new ‘media’ area.
Things which I’d not realised had stopped working such as the daily or weekly updates are now being sent again and it’s all been wrapped into a software that’s in keeping with modern usages, specific things I’m enjoying are the emojis, image copy and pasting, more upload options and just feeling more useable.
I hope you’d agree and that you’ll all continue to enjoy the forum long in to the future.
Whilst I’m still welcome to do so by the new owners (Hi @TechAdmin), I’ll be here assisting as usual and making sure people can find those ancient threads that only resurface every few years
I'd like to thank all of the members old and new for their contributions to the forum, asking questions, answering questions, posting back resolutions and just making the place one of the best forums on the Internet.
)
