• Pros

• A completely reasonable pickup truck. If you don’t need a pickup truck, but you really want a pickup truck, the Maverick is the truck to get. It minimizes all the downsides of owning a full, or even “midsize” pickup truck. With a Maverick, you can drive a pickup truck without dreading parking lots, without having to saw off two feet of the bed to fit it in your garage, without getting 18 miles per gallon in the city, without using a step ladder to get in and out of the thing, and without having to take out a home equity loan. And yet, the Maverick is absolutely a pickup truck.
• Size. Even Ford’s midsize pickup, the Ranger, is too big for many suburban and city dwellers. The Maverick is the size of a larger car or midsize SUV. It’s a four-door crew cab, with adequate room in the back for a couple of passengers. Its smaller size makes it easy to maneuver, totally reasonable to park, more likely to fit in a garage, and not so high off the ground that you split your pants every time you climb in. Yet it looks like a pickup truck, acts like a pickup truck, and, unless you’re hauling 4,000 pounds of boulders, does the job of a pickup truck.
• Mileage. The Maverick comes with two engine options; a 2.0 liter 250 hp four cylinder that gets 25 mpg, and our test truck’s 2.5L, 191 hp hybrid. In mostly city and suburban driving, our hybrid Maverick delivered a remarkable 46 miles per gallon. In. A. Pickup. Truck. The EPA says you should expect more like 37 mpg.
• Height. If you’ve used a full size pickup truck lately, and you've put something in the rear bed, you know that you have to climb up and reach down, or do a half-pike over the bed rail to grab whatever’s on the bed floor. The Maverick is not jacked up like that. So it’s actually possible to reach over the side rails and place something in the bed, and then retrieve it without pulling an ab muscle. The reasonable, crossover-ish height also makes the passenger compartment easy to get in and out of.
• Price. Our high-end Lariat hybrid model was a pre-production truck, so it wasn’t priced. But a comparable build would run you about $36,000. The Maverick starts at around $24,000. And while you can push one up to the $40,000 mark, that’s still a bargain compared to full size trucks, which can sell for $60,000-$80,000. Keep in mind that the average new car transaction price these days is about $45K, so a loaded, hybrid pickup truck for less than that is impressive.
• Controls. If we want to be generous to Ford, we can say that they set out to make the controls very clear and simple, eschewing complicated touch switches and the like. If we want to be less generous, we can say that at this price point, Ford just went with the basics. But the result is the same: Pleasingly simple, straightforward controls for all the commonly used functions like volume, tuning, and temperature, plus a touch screen for entertainment and deep, rarely used options. If you’ve hated the way modern cars make you go three menus deep on the touchscreen just to adjust the dashboard lights, you’ll love the Maverick.
• Ride and handling. The ride is best on suburban roads and highways, where the truck is quite comfortable. Handling is 100% adequate. Not sporty in any way, but competent and predictable.

• Cons

• Visible cost saving. The Maverick is not a luxury vehicle. It doesn’t pretend to be. But even in high end trims, there’s a good amount of plastic trim work. Kind of like pickup trucks used to look.
• Seat comfort. It’s fine, but it’s another place where a bit of money was saved. Your butt might prefer the F-150 King Ranch edition leather seats, but your wallet might prefer to keep the extra $40 grand.

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