ATOMIC KITTEN

Is this the sweetest spot of Ford's 'New Edge' purple patch? Today, 25 years since it was launched, I'm almost certain of it. The sun's beating down and this Puma feels even better than my own did when I sold it more than a decade ago. A foolish move, I can't help but conclude.

I've been driving to a much more symbolic reunion, though, one with the dinky coupé's design chief, the inimitable Ian Callum. Back in the mid-1990s Callum was working for TWR and the Aston Martin DB7 had just launched to widespread praise. He tells me: 'Suddenly I have a calling card. Ford comes along and says "We've got this Yamaha engine and we're looking for a car to put it in." Rather than just put it in a Fiesta, they want to build a special car around it, to give the engine a unique home.'

In the modern era of platform-sharing and parts-bin commonality concepts that have hoovered up the individuality of affordable mainstream cars - it sounds like an absurd indulgence. The fact that the Vauxhall Tigra was out gave the numbers boys an excuse to try something, otherwise I'm not sure this would have happened. Ford always measured to make sure a marketplace existed, and that's something that was a big frustration for a designer with new ideas.

It brought the Puma to fruition, however, giving Callum one of his biggest-selling hits. 'Designing this fascinated me more than designing something exotic because it's more challenging,' he tells me. 'You have to think harder. At the end of the day, it gives a lot more people pleasure. It's like a pop song. It's nice to get a number one that people can all enjoy rather than some obscure track that only niche music fans will listen to.

The challenge here was to whip up something exotic from a Fiesta platform. The body could be all-new, but the dimensions couldn't change - and nor could the rather prosaic interior. 'Design is about dealing with constraint and getting the best answer out of it, Ian says. 'It's not about just doing what you want and hoping somebody will build it. I have done that, mind. It was called the Jaguar C-X75...'