After months of speculation, Ford has finally announced that its compact pickup truck is coming and that it’s called the Maverick. The truck will make its debut on June 8. Not a lot is known about it yet, but the company released a couple of videos and images that give a glimpse of the side and the rear of the truck. Ford is hyping it up by saying, ‘The truck you didn’t see coming is coming’. Are you excited?
The Maverick Will Be Ford’s Cheapest Truck
The pre-launch videos don’t give up much, but in one of them, you can see the truck’s rear profile. Nothing extraordinary, but you have the ‘Maverick’ branding stamped on the tailgate along with the Blue Oval badge. This will be slot below the Ranger in terms of pricing, so it would be a sin to expect it to look premium and smart. But, from what we see here, it isn’t too bad.
What Do We Know About The Maverick So Far?
The Maverick is expected to be a unibody truck. It will be slot below the Ford Ranger. It will most likely come with a starting sticker price of under $20,000. The base truck will barely have anything to offer. You can expect plastic bumpers and cladding on the outside, halogen headlights. All-wheel-drive could be offered as optional, but it’s a no-brainer that front-wheel-drive layout will be the standard option.
This new truck is underpinned by the same platform as the Escape. So, we could see the same engine options offered here, too. The Escape is available with a 1.5-liter, three-cylinder engine that makes 181 horses and 190 pound-feet of torque, and a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder mill that dishes out 250 horses and 280 pound-feet of torque. They could be offered in the same state of tune here in the Maverick, too. It will save them some developmental costs as well, which in turn would allow Ford to offer it at a competitive price.
The truck is yet to arrive and it already has a rival in the upcoming Hyundai Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz is also a unibody truck and will share its underpinnings with the Hyundai Tucson and offer the same engines. So, in some ways, this will be a Tucson vs Escape rivalry disguised as Santa Cruz vs Maverick.
A text in one of the pre-launch videos says that this is the pre-production model and the truck will be available from fall 2021.
’Maverick’ Isn’t A New Nameplate
Did you know that the ‘Maverick’ badge isn’t new and Ford has already used it in the past? The Maverick moniker has been prevalent in the Ford family for very long. Originally, it was used for a compact car sold in the 70s. Later, Ford went on to slap the term on a rebadged Nissan Patrol in Australia in the 80s and 90s, on the rebadged Nissan Terrano sold in Europe in the 90s, and even on the European version of the Ford Escape sold in the early 2000s. If only Ford would introduce a military green shade on the Maverick truck to make it look all badass!
Where Can We View The Maverick’s Launch?
The truck will debut on the automaker’s social channels, including TikTok, and Hulu. Ford has roped in actor Gabrielle Union and she will show the truck on her Instagram and TikTok channels as well. The Maverick is coming on June 8, but the time is not announced yet.