Starting with the 2022 season, the World Rally Championship will move into its hybrid era, and that will bring new models into the mix. Ford has sent its Puma crossover to go racing, and the specialists at M-Sport have developed a Rally1-class WRC model out of it. This is what it looks like.
Instead of just waiting for the 2022 Monte Carlo WRC event to unveil the Puma Rally1, Ford and M-Sport have decided to highlight the latest race car distinctly. As you may be aware, Ford acquired a factory in Romania many years ago, and that facility is the only one that builds the Puma.
After 12 years of arduous work, the Ford Craiova factory has made over one million vehicles. The Blue Oval could throw a massive party and bring all its employees together to celebrate, but the company did the next best thing. They got a cake and placed it in the factory, so it could be enjoyed the next day.
Well, it appears that Adrien Fourmaux, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team driver, along with the Chrome Productions crew, had different plans. The M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 was called into action, and it “gatecrashed” the party, as Ford explained. It was all a stunt to mark the occasion, but it still is impressive.
Naturally, you can watch the embedded video below, but before you do, we will have you know that it took the production crew three days to film the entire thing, and the crew and cast required almost 40 people.
For a short film with just a single line, that may seem like a lot, but the Blue Oval cannot stop production for a few hours just to film a promotional video, which is why several days were needed, and filming was fragmented.
According to the automaker, every person you see in the video below is a Ford employee, and there are many “Easter Eggs” concealed in the clip. There is no prize if you manage to spot them all, but that should not stop anyone.
The M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 is the first electrified competition vehicle in the history of the American brand. It comes with a next-generation hybrid powertrain that includes a 100-kWh (ca. 134 horsepower) electric motor and a turbocharged 1.6-liter gasoline engine. The EcoBoost motor's grunt gets a boost from the hybrid system, which is energized by a 3.9 kWh battery.
The entire hybrid system of the Ford Puma Rally1 weighs 95 kilograms (ca. 209 lbs.), and it is both liquid and air-cooled. To prevent any unfortunate events, the battery is enclosed in a ballistic-strength casing that is meant to help it resist impact from debris and even g-forces in the event of an accident.
Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland. Full profile
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