So I bought a Puma......

My wife decided to remodel my little run-around Fiesta by taking a muntjac on head to head, I lost, or rather my car did. So there I am considering what I might buy for under £1,000 to run around to work, at this point I should declare I have been selling Ford's for 20 years including of course the iconic Ford Puma, and so I was hoping to find one for sensible money....For what is almost certainly going to be a future classic, not yet of course, they are ridiculously cheap. I can remember selling these for £14k, £15k even £16k and above and they were considered one of the best handling coupes of their time. There are plenty on Ebay but some right chancers as well, I happened across a very poor advert on Autotrader which amounted to a 2-line description and no pic!! I figured it was either someone who has little experience selling things or a trader chancing his arm, luckily it was the former. It was described as a 1 lady owner FSH 2000W 1.7 Puma in Red 60,000 miles, and that was about all. Twice I said to the lady "How bad are the wheel arches" and she said they are ok just some dents to the drivers door. I did take a bit of a flyer on the car as the MOT had only 10 days to run but on the MOT history check 3,000 miles ago the advisories were corrosion to the exhaust and one sill. As luck would have it the exhaust had been done so I got a temporary repair to the sill (I will replace it properly later) and got one of our mechanics to put it up in the air to see the extent of the rust problem, incredibly apart from the one sill it is immaculate, the arches are perfect. It failed the MOT yesterday.....on one brake pipe, so £60 plus the cost of the MOT I have a years MOT and no advisories. Oh and it has done 58,000 miles and I have all the invoices for all the services including cambelt changes etc. There can be no better car you can buy for £500 surely?? It drives beautifully, is agile, solid and yep they all tell me it is a hairdressers car. (another 50 year old male driver of a Puma me) The burning question is do I let my wife drive it? I should add that is the third car she has written off and in the last two years she has hit 2 muntjac and.....our house!!!

Sounds like a good buy :thumbs:

As to letting your wife near it, do you like deer? or your house? :grin:

Sounds like a good find. Not sure on letting the wife drive it given the history there!

Welcome also

Hi Jules
Do you live on a Nature Reserve and I thought those Muntjacs were tiny little things. It makes it a deer repair, though
Barry

Thanks for the welcome, very good Barry, perhaps I should buy a triumph Stag. Clearly it is never her fault, I am guessing the house also ran out in front of her. Rather annoyingly it is always in my car and never in her new Fiesta, probably a good thing that.

Sounds a great buy but don't let her near it.

Welcome a great buy for £500 at least you wont have to spend lots on your puma like i did mine and both wheel arches rust free well done!

I still can't get my head around why they are so cheap, I work in the trade and sometimes the book is just wrong. Although often that depends on whether you are the buyer, or seller of course.

They are so cheap because most of them are nearly rusted out now. If you find one that's not but with no cam belt history you could be spending £400 on that so it's got to the stage where people are buying them with 12 months MOT and then not caring what happens to them after that.
Barry

It is interesting how a Fiesta Xr2i can still demand good money, but a faster, better handling "warm Ford" goes for peanuts. Not that I'm complaining.

When they get rarer the value will go up. The fiesta of the XR2i era is pretty rare now and was a 'sport' model of the time, Fiesta RS Turbos have gone and are going up in value because they are even more rare - I think I've seen 1 in the last year on the road (exclude shows etc).

As Ben says rarity will push the value up. I think the next two years will kill off most of the cheap Pumas and then they will be quite a rare sight.
Barry

Suggest you invest in a Sherman Tank. Ahh, but if she hits the house again??

We have just purchased a Y prefix Puma 1.7 to make into a race car at £140.