Ford launches new Puma ST Edition

The old Fiesta ST Edition was something to write home about - can Ford really repeat the trick with its crossover?

By PH Staff / Thursday, 23 July 2026 / Loading comments

You’ll remember the Ford Fiesta ST Edition, of course. It sought to improve on the already brilliant supermini with new chassis hardware alone, and succeeded wildly. No faster in a straight line was it, but it cornered even more enthusiastically - and on the basis that everyone bought a Fiesta ST to enthusiastically knock off corners, it made for a hot hatch of the highest order. Back in 2020, Dan P even said it was better than the then-new Toyota GR Yaris. And he was right.

Naturally, it being exceptionally good was not a good enough reason to save it from the chop (no surprise there when selling a bajillion was also not considered an adequate reason), so the ST Edition died alongside the rest of the Fiesta lineup. Ford’s flimsy excuse at the time, in a nutshell, was that everyone was buying the Puma anyway, so we could all have one of those, regardless of its tedious appearance and higher asking price.

Faced with precious little choice in the conventional small car segment - and with virtually no competition elsewhere in Ford’s dreary lineup (Mustang excepted, obviously) - British consumers have duly kept the Puma at or near the top of the nation’s best-selling cars, and made it by far the manufacturer’s most popular car. Presumably as a result, Ford has now decided to roll out an Edition variant in much the same guise as its (spiritual) predecessor.

Thus you get a new Handling Pack that features coilovers supplied by KW Automotive alongside dampers that use ‘sophisticated valve technology’ - a nod, presumably, to the dual-valved passive solution that also featured in the Fiesta. At any rate, the Puma’s ride height is lowered by 10mm, and its maker promises ‘superior response and enhanced capability on road and track’.

Hard to imagine many people willing to be caught dead on circuit with the school-run special - but lengthy previous experience of the Fiesta (which shared its undersides with the Puma) suggests that the Edition will perform as advertised. Elsewhere you get illuminated scuff plates and a sports steering wheel, not to mention the Azura Blue paint and contrasting black roof that made the supermini version standout.

Sadly, what you don’t get is the old 200hp 1.5-litre three-pot, which was lobbed on the scrapheap some time ago for being too lavish with its emissions. The manual transmission has long since departed, too, the pairing replaced by a mild-hybridised 170hp variant of the 1.0-litre Ecoboost mated to a seven-speed Powershift auto, which is said to be capable of 0-60mph in 7.4 seconds. A shadow of its former self then in straight line terms then - but perhaps that was always beside the point as far as the Edition was concerned. Expect confirmation of price and UK spec in due course.