Ford Puma ST-Line X Vignale 2020 UK review

Like a Puma with some TOWIE-style ‘jazzle dazzle’. "Innit laahrrvely", et cetera. There’s chrome on the bodyside, on the grille and on both bumpers which doesn’t feature on ‘lesser’ Pumas – but because this Vignale uses the car’s next-best-and-quite-sporty ST-Line X trim level as its basis you also get 18in wheels, enlarged sculpted air intakes, body-coloured wheelarches and sills, and a rear valance with a mock twin exhaust. To these eyes the chrome makes the car look a bit antiquated, but it’s a personal thing; if you like it, you'll totes like it.

That there aren’t any slightly naff Vignale badges on the car is something of a development. You may remember how earnestly Ford insisted that it had launched a genuine pseudo-premium Vignale sub-brand just a few years ago; and how prominently the first generation of Vignale models – the Mondeo, S-Max, Edge, Focus and Kuga among them – wore those crests on bootlid and front wing. Well, not the Puma. It may be too early to suggest that some back-pedalling has occurred since the recently facelifted Kuga still wears its Vignale badges just as proudly; but maybe, just maybe, there’s a strategic rethink in progress – and I, for one, don’t think that would be the worst idea.

The Puma Vignale’s cabin gets heated leather seats, a stitched leather dashtop and door panels, and quite a lot of equipment as standard. It’s still unlikely to strike you as classy or upmarket, though. Immediately apparent build quality is good enough; none of our test car’s fixtures and fittings seemed to wobble, rattle or flex unflatteringly. The decorative patterned grey dashboard trim could almost be carbonfibre, but you’d need to squint a fair bit when looking at it. It’s simply that the balance of the car’s mouldings that haven’t been upgraded, and most of its switches and controls, are just a bit plain and unlovely.

That’s what someone who could just as easily be running around in a fairly high-end Audi Q2 or Mini Countryman would be most likely to observe first about the Puma, I’ll wager. They’d be hapy enough about passenger space, which is at least passable for the overgrown supermini class. Ford’s Megabox underfloor boot storage area does remain a neat practicality score for the car, in which you could just as easily transport muddy wellies or a Yukka plant. Both, even, if you didn’t fancy paying for the Yukka.

The Puma’s got digital instruments and a wireless smartphone charging as standard (although you needn’t buy a Vignale to get either) and so it feels pretty up-to-date for cabin technology. For some reason the car’s analogue speedometer only has speeds marked at 0mph and 160mph. There’s a digital speedo in the middle of it, but you do wonder a little why they bothered with the dial. In any case, the digital instrument screen is bright and clear and is fairly configurable for display content.