Formula Ford racing exists in two main forms: National Series run around the world using the 1600 Duratec engine, (which replaced the heavier but not significantly more powerful Zetec engine in 2006); and a mainly amateur, club-racing series attracting serious enthusiasts using the now elderly 1600 Kent Engine with which the formula ran from mid-sixties to mid-nineties. The car can provide drivers with their first insights into how a racing car feels to drive and how to properly set up a car, or it can provide a relatively inexpensive way for drivers to campaign purpose-built racecars for many years. Many Formula Ford 1600 series exist for drivers of the older Kent powered cars.

A Formula Ford car is one of the more distinctive-looking open-wheel race cars because it does not have wings to create aerodynamic downforce, one of the reasons the series has persisted for so long in motor racing. Top speeds in the National Class are as high as in the other Junior Formulae of BMW and Renault, but the cornering speeds are lower due to the downforce-producing aerodynamic aids on the other cars. Handling is entirely down to mechanical grip, and the lack of wings ensures that cars following another are not aerodynamically disadvantaged, allowing close racing with plenty of overtaking. Series' rules may permit slick tires or treaded tires. As the rules limit modifications, all cars are relatively equal and close racing results. Still, Formula Fords allow suspension and braking bias changes, if not aerodynamic options like winged cars.

Formula Ford cars weigh 410/420 kg (1000 lb), so their engines, which typically develop about 140/115 hp, are capable of propelling them from 0–100 km/h in less than five seconds, reaching top speeds of nearly 235/220 km/h (150/140 mph). The engine is usually a stressed member of the chassis, as in larger and more advanced Formula cars.

Several famous race drivers have used the formula as a step up to international competitions. For example, David Coulthard and Jenson Button were both British Formula Ford champions; Danica Patrick, the American IRL racer, finished second in the British Formula Ford Festival early in her career. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Emerson Fittipaldi and Jody Scheckter were both competing in Grands Prix within a year or so of starting Formula Ford in Britain.