The Ford Racing Puma was created by the Ford Rally specialist team at Boreham, lead by Peter Beattie. The production run was initially pencilled to run for 1000 units, 500 destined for the German market, 500 for the UK. All conversions were carried out by Tickford, Daventry UK. The vehicle featured a modified version of the 1.7 Zetec-S engine which produced 155 bhp (116 kW) and 119 ft·lbf (161 N·m) of torque. It could also accelerate to 62 mph (100 km/h) in 7.9 seconds. As well as this there were other modifications including wider bodywork and track front and rear, disc brakes to the rear and larger race-spec Alcon discs/4 pot calipers up front, Sparco bucket seats, blue Alcantara trim, 17" Speedline rims. Ultimately, Racing Puma was only sold in the right-hand drive format to the UK market. All were produced in Ford Racing Blue paint, (same as the paint used on Focus RS), which was otherwise not available on Pumas in the UK market. Less than half were actually sold to customers due to the vehicle's high price/bhp often cited as a reason for this. To put this in perspective Ford dealers in the North of England were asking up to ?23,000 for the Racing Puma when rival performance cars like the Subaru Imprezza (with an additional 50+ BHP/Turbo, 4 Wheel Drive and rallying pedigree) were being offered for a maximum of ?21,000 with the optional Pro Drive pack. The lower than anticipated demand saw Ford offering Racing Pumas to senior managers through their MRC scheme, which enabled cars to continue being registered and converted.[

Pictured: Blue coloured chair for obese people in the metro station in Sao Paulo, Brazil.. . Special chairs for fatties have been installed on Brazil's trains to cope with the country's soaring obesity race.. . The blue-coloured seats are nearly twice as wide as normal chairs and can support even the bulkiest passenger up to 550lbs without breaking.. . But baffled Metro bosses in Sao Paulo say they're being ignored by obese passengers, who they think are to ashamed to use them.. . A sign above each seat shows a cartoon of an roly-poly passenger saying "Priority chair for obese people.". . "It may be that they don't want to think of themselves as fat or they resent being put in with pensioners and the disabled," said one manager.