What would Parry-Jones say?

Would Ford's former chief of worldwide product development have OK'ed this Puma EV? Andrew Frankel thinks not...

- Andrew Frankel

I didn’t know Richard Parry-Jones when I travelled to Saint-Tropez in January 1993 to drive a new Ford. But without knowing it, I was already feeling his influence. The car was the replacement for the Sierra and, frankly, we weren’t expecting much given how mediocre was that car and the fifth-generation Escort (Britain’s biggest-seller in ’93). And in the latter case ‘mediocre’ is being kind. But then came the invite, and with it an offer to transport any and all rivals to comparison test against the car they called Mondeo. This was, indeed, what some might call ‘fighting talk’. But without so much as sitting in it, and despite all evidence to the contrary, we knew before we left England that Ford had come up with a world-beater. And so it proved. We drove a Nissan, Peugeot and Toyota to the Mediterranean where the Mondeo took them to pieces.