The new car bloat is real. In a world where vehicles are larger than ever, new car buyers have been calling on automakers to downsize vehicles so that they might actually fit in their garages. That’s what makes compact pickups like the 2022 Ford Maverick so darn refreshing.
Recently, folks from the Maverick Truck Club (as reported by Motor1) spotted a Carbonized Gray Maverick next to its two larger siblings, the Ford Ranger and the F-150. The comparison helps show just how small Ford’s newest pickup really is and sets a whole new modern precedent for compact pickups.
Now, we already knew that the Maverick was small. At 72.6 inches wide, the Maverick is about 7 percent narrower than the Ranger and more than 10 percent compared to the F-150. As for height, the roofline sits at just 68.7 inches, or roughly 5.75 feet. That’s 4.6 inches lower than the Ranger and almost 7 inches lower than the F-150.
But those are numbers, and the real key to understanding just how much tinier the Maverick really is, is to actually visualize it next to its kin. The new photos of the Maverick help to do exactly that, especially the head-on photo which shows how much lower the truck sits, and also how much better it fits between the lines of a parking space.
Another photo also shows a Maverick painted in Oxford White next to a smaller Ranger XL and an F-150 XLT.
Customers have also been calling on Ford to build a regular cab variant of the Maverick, but given 2021 Truck Economics, that doesn’t seem likely (have a read from one of our commenters to understand why). Besides, the Maverick’s huge amount of dry lockable storage is actually quite the selling point.
Ford’s closest competitor to the Maverick will be the Hyundai Santa Cruz, which we recently tested and were genuinely impressed with. Brand loyalists probably won’t have a problem sticking with Ford for a utilitarian truck, however, the lines begin to blur when comparing the Santa Cruz’s premium SEL trim to the Maverick’s Lariat, both of which can be priced north of $40,000 with the right options. And should General Motors jump back into the game as expected, there will be yet another option on the horizon for the compact pickup market.
For now, you can’t actually buy a Maverick but you can configure and reserve one on Ford’s website starting at the affordable price of around $21,000. The Blue Oval claims to begin customer deliveries of the small pickup beginning in Fall 2021.
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