I dont know what we were talking about, but I thought I heard a police siren and looked up at the mirror. I could see blue and red lights flashing on a Rover 200. Er...we have a police car behind us. That woke up Elizabeth Levavasseur, my volunteer guide for the day.
We had started off an hour ago from Londons busy Mayfair area and had successfully traced our way to M23 that would take us to Portsmouth and later through the Euro tunnel to Calais in France. The destination was pure accident, because right till the end of a busy European media visit, I did not know what I was going to be doing at the end of the visit. I had two days, some money and a ticket to Stuttgart for a conference that was never to be. One of our friends had the Ford Puma for a test drive and Elizabeth, who knew my plans, stepped in and offered me the car if I wanted it.
Wanted it? Who could say no to a 1700CC, wide-eyed coupe from Ford that hid 123 horses that can gallop with a psycho-acoustic growl? And that, for a whole weekend. Wow, I nodded, dumbstruck. And even though Ford in Europe doesnt pay their employees for working on Saturdays, Elizabeth decided to play the good hostess and offered to be the guide. Things couldnt have been more perfect.
Elizabeth Levavasseur is French and comes from Brittany, and like all other people from Brittany will tell you that no other place in the world is more beautiful than Brittany. She spoke good English with a tendency to emphasise her statements with a stretched version of absolutely. Absooluutely gave away the English game most of the time. Her father worked with Renault for forty years, and though happy that one of his children worked for an automobile giant, was sad that Elizabeth got a job with Ford and not with Renault or Peugeot. My father is absooluutely French, she added.
I was doing just about 120 kph and was in the fast lane with most of the traffic going at about the same speed, when I noticed a police car in my rearview mirror. The official speed limit on the motorways in England is 70 mph, but not many adhere to that unless they are warned about a camera that can click you and your car with the number plate. I thought for a while to reassure myself that I hadnt done something bad enough for these guys to flash lights and scare the hell out of me. With these thoughts and an apology from Elizabeth for not noticing the police car earlier, I reduced the speed a bit, tapped on the left indicator and pulled to a slower lane. The Rover 200 instantly came parallel to me with the left window rolling down. He cannot shoot me, I thought aloud. Absooluutely not, said my co-driver...
At that moment the middle-aged cop turned to me and communicated in sign language that I should keep an eye on the rearview mirror. Relief! The windows of the Rover pulled up, and it accelerated away with the flashing lights becoming a speck on the horizon in a few seconds. In England the police has the right of way in fast lanes however fast you are driving, you have to make way for them. Absooluutely English manners, said Elizabeth.
In the city, the Puma was a tamed animal that purred around the busy streets. It has been a while since the official launch, but it is still rare to spot Pumas on the streets of London. Naturally, a few eyes popped as we pulled up next to mundane Fiestas, Escorts and Cavaliers. A girl driving a Fiesta with a 16 valve badge on its tail gate seemed really fascinated by the looks of the car she would have been surprised to know that the Puma is derived from the Fiesta platform and borrows from the Fiesta parts bin heavily. The whizkids at Fords Dunton engineering facility were responsible for one of the best small coupes ever. The Opel/Vauxhaul Tigra was the only European contender for the aggressive coupe statement that young buyers always seem to want to make.
The Puma was worth the wait, because the car sports the kind of looks that, though emerged from the new edge design first seen in the Ford Ka, is unique. Ford knows that those youngsters do not have much money to spend on cars and has kept the price down by sticking to whatever that matched and was made for the Fiesta. That included the facia, but clever aluminium inserts and a beautiful machined aluminium gear knob hides the cheap image. I was all praise for the gear knob and told Elizabeth that it actually tempted one to change gears. She looked at it as if for the first time and nodded agreement.
On the motorway, the car is a delight. The 1700CC in-line four is a willing motor at the fifth gear. It was becoming a little boring because for fifteen minutes I had not shifted the gear lever once. The gearing is what Ford has got spot on with the Puma. The ratios are beautifully spaced and allow the enthusiast to exploit the available power through the gears, without reaching the saturation points in between.
According to Richard Parry-Jones, vice president, Small and Medium Vehicle Centre, the Puma represents Fords focus on the special needs of the enthusiast driver. It is a symbol of all the driver-oriented strengths that Ford is now building into its cars. Parry-Jones can say that with conviction thanks to the Zetec motor. The 123 bhp motor is a derivative of the Zetec SE, developed for high drivability, with a flat torque curve which delivers over 85 per cent of available torque from just 1,500 rpm right up to the limit. The engine remains smooth and eager during hard acceleration, and its flexibility means that it is responsive for driving around town. Variable Cam Timing or VCT a first for this class, contributes to the torque and flexibility of the motor. By using the engine management computer to control the timing of the inlet valve opening, VCT increases both power and low end torque and at the same time makes the car more economical and green. And I would switch off its fabulous music system every time
I had to accelerate just to listen to that absooluutely glorious exhaust note.
The French gendarmes at the mouth of the Euro tunnel looked at the strange combination of a new silver Puma, white navigator and a brown driver. Instead of letting us drive through, he asked us to park and get out of the car, disregarding the I have seen many tunnels kind of look that I gave him. The problem was that I was a first-time traveller through the tunnel, and new passengers have to fill out a form if they are not EEC nationals. Elizabeth charmed the gendarme into completing the formalities in five minutes flat.
Now it was time to drive the car into Le Shuttle, the mammoth double-decked train that can take 50 cars at a time across and under the English channel to Calais. We skipped the opportunity to visit the duty free shops (there are many who use the Chunnel to shop cheap) to get the first available Shuttle.
Five cars can be accommodated in one compartment deck provided one of them is not a stretch limo. An attendant will check if you have your windows down, the gear slotted in first, and the handbrake applied and you are ready to roll. The terrible thing about Le Shuttle and the Chunnel itself is that it offers little by way of entertainment even the thought that you are travelling so may metres under the sea is not captivating enough. It would be nice to have some glass walls here and there so that one could occasionally spot a tiger shark or whatever. I was thinking aloud again. Pat came the reply from Elizabeth, That would be very stupid...absooluutely!
Thirty minutes was all that it took to reach Calais. And bright sunshine awaited us as we drove out of the Shuttle and on to the typically French port town. And without realising it I made the biggest blunder any road traveller crossing over to France from England could make; I was driving on the left side of the road, and while that was right in England it was very wrong in France. Thankfully the road that leads you out of the tunnel and into the town is one-way for quite a distance time enough for the mistake-prone to get the hang of left hand drive.
Driving a right-hand drive car in left-hand country is tough business, but the weekend traffic at Calais was very relaxed and moreover, people in this part of France are quite used to erratic Britons taking their own time to decide which side they want to be driving on. We had skipped breakfast and immediately drove to what looked like the town square for lunch. Calais is a different world and it is amazing how technology has forced us to see things differently in a matter of thirty minutes. The people, the food, the architecture, the language, the cars...every thing goes out of the window as one reaches this Gaulic shore.
The Puma was getting a lot of attention too; even the French, who are not too bad at producing different-looking (weird is probably the right, though less polite, word) small cars like the 2 CV and the Renault Cinque, seemed a little amused by the looks of the small coupe from Ford.
Lunch was a one hour affair with a typically careless French waiter messing up our orders and providing me with some excellent cheese and tomato over a crisp bread instead of the boring steak and mushrooms that I had asked for. By the time the bill was paid, the weather had changed a slight drizzle with gusts of chilly wind from the Atlantic made us run for the shelter of Puma. The rain cleared fast and that gave us some time to take some moody shots of the Puma at the port with sea gulls making merry in the background (sadly, underexposed and hence not published).
The drive up to Point de Nes froids was phenomenal with the road practically empty and following the shore line with just the right blend of corners for one to unleash a sport car. I could actually hit 100 kph under six seconds and the car responded with a taut yet agile chassis planting it to the road. In the fourth gear I took the speedo to 170 before lifting off for a rather slow Renault Megane right in front of me.
This was proving to be a wonderful drive and as the roads took some twists to take the Puma up to the Cold Nose Point it became even better. Winds blasted with some ferocity at the top of the hill and it was difficult to even stand upright in such conditions let alone hold the Nikon steady. It was absooluutely cold.
Just about nine in the night, we hit London again after another uneventful Channel tunnel drive. Sipping Irish beer in a crowded pub at Mayfair, Elizabeth was an absooluutely tired soul. A heavy week was past, a multi-national Saturday was fading and as more and more Londoners came in for their drinks, we said good bye to each other.
Two weeks later in Mumbai, I received an airfreight packet that was unusually heavy. It contained a machined aluminium gear knob, right out of a Ford Puma with compliments from Ford Europe. It now adorns my not so sporty automobile, but every time I shift a gear, a purring Puma, a Chunnel crossing and a day out in Calais spring to mind.
Taking the Chunnel to Calais with the exotic Ford Puma on a blustery London weekend.
