Usually when a brand puts out a special edition car, the design would be in-house unless it’s a collaboration with a famous icon like the Land Rover Evoque Special Edition with Victoria Beckham. Sometimes, it’s a collaboration with a trending subject like the Hyundai Kona Iron Man edition.
Ford added another inspiration source to this list by having one of their crossovers be a platform for a crowd-sourced design.
The Ford Puma ST Gold Edition is the result of over 275,000 votes from Ford Europe’s Twitter and Instagram profiles. From simple exterior decals to the color of brake calipers, and even the final name of the car, Ford let their fans mix-and-match the design aspects of the crossover.
After 10 days, they’ve ended up with the following – a black exterior color, lines as decals, red brake calipers, grey seat belt stitching, ST badges, Puma scuff plates, ST pride plate, and the Puma ST Gold Edition as the name of the resulting design.
“To create something truly special for our loyal performance fans, we’ve moved to a forward-looking approach in co-creating the Puma ST Gold Edition with them. The number of votes cast shows just how enthusiastic our customers are – and that they have excellent taste,” said Amko Leenarts, director, Design, Ford of Europe. “It’s all in the details, and with this special edition, our fans have configured a truly desirable product.”
Powering the special edition crossover is a 1.5L EcoBoost engine with 197 horsepower accompanied by selectable driving modes, limited-slip differential option, patented force vectoring springs and unique suspension and steering specifications.
This is not the first time that Ford made something with the help of their fans. Ford’s e-sports team, Team Fordzilla, revealed the P1 Concept last year. It was a collaboration between the designers at Ford and their gamer sim-racing fan base that sought to create the ultimate virtual race car.
The Ford Puma ST Gold Edition will be available in Europe only in limited numbers.
