2019 BMW X2 vs 2021 Ford Puma

What's the difference?

As is often the case, BMW has come late to a really good party. One imagines there was some chatter about making a quick X1 but that would have been an answer to a question few people thought to ask. It's not a racy-looking machine and perhaps its more prosaic aims as a compact SUV ruled it out. Or the hangover from the weird first generation.

The X2's Paris Motor Show debut a couple of years ago signalled BMW's second entrant in the compact SUV segment, but this one looked fast standing still. Most of it made it to production - including the C-pillar BMW badges, sadly - but there was no promise of a fast one.

Weirdly, the Australian market hasn't really taken to the X2 as enthusiastically as I thought it might and I wondered if it was because there was no headline act - Mercedes has the guilty pleasure of mine, the AMG GLA45, and Audi the completely bonkers RS Q3. But the headline act has arrived in the form the of the X2 M35i - perhaps this will suddenly get us a bit more interested.

S FAR as makeovers go, Hollywood has nothing on the transformation of Ford's small SUV.

Based on the Fiesta supermini only sold here in sizzling ST form, but using a stretched and widened version of its platform with heavily reworked underpinnings, the strikingly styled Puma is as charming – beguiling even – as its EcoSport predecessor was awkward. And we're talking about capabilities that are more than merely skin deep here.

We're not alone in our admiration – one respected UK publication awarded the Ford a 'car of the year' gong – and after nearly a month with our range-topping ST-Line V (for Vignale), we can understand why.

But the German-engineered, Romanian-made Puma is also a complicated proposition in Australia that requires some context, because it is certainly not for everyone.