So apparently my prediction was pretty close - The Maverick is up over 100,000 pre-orders with the majority of those coming from CA, TX, and FL. Apparently LA & SF have a notable amount of those pre-orders. I think this thing could end up being a big deal for Ford - one of it's roughly once-a-decade "aha!" moments (Transit, Mustang, Taurus, Focus etc).
Between the Maverick and Bronco Sport, Ford really has their bases covered. They knocked it out of the park. There have been a few missteps for sure, mainly from Covid, but the core ideas are really solid.
It's almost deliberately cheap looking. But not in the traditional (American) way where you are left with a heavily value-engineered version of what was once a premium design in concept, but in a way where the designers were genuinely trying to provide a great and inherently low cost design from the start. The reference to the cheap European cars is perfect.
I can see it. It definitely seems like an idea we've seen in concept cars, the recycled materials and new applications of texture and color, but very rarely in American concept cars. The entire time I've been looking at photos and watching reviews I was totally aware of how basic the interior was but felt like "Yeah, that's decent". Just decent. I'd sit in it. I'd own one, hoping that the new materials and textures are actually durable.
Well the point is that those Euro cars and the Maverick's interior are the opposite of those old GM interiors - GM stuck to the idea that cheap materials had to mimic expensive ones whereas the Euro ethos was that cheap materials are great if designed well. GM's approach was defined by an utter lack of "design" from the get-go. The Maverick's interior looks like a ton of design time was spent with a limited palette and the result is actually very thoughtful.
Yeah it's also interesting to see how much car you can get for the money, and the compromises made or what was prioritized. And they have to work with the increasing safety and other regulations, probably why everything is on a global architecture now.
I like that you can kind of read into the Maverick what you want. Lower & tune it and you have a modern day GMC Syclone. Put some rally armor mud flaps on one and you got yourself a mini rally raid truck. Kit it out with a roof rack and you have an Outback/Baja like campsite companion. I really want to test drive one.
Well, if I could get my hands on a base model and put $10,000 down, my monthly payment on a standard 60 month would be like $160/mo. I mean, I wouldn't do this to strictly to save commute costs, because that would rely on me to be very strict about doing the drive'n'bike every day, which could get tedious. But, I would save money every time I did it, and I would have a cool little truck.
Minus $10,000.
Nope. We need your bank details, a spreadsheet of your daily spending, your retirement plans, blood sample and the names of your future grand kids. Just in case you decide to skip town.
Life's short, buy stuff.
Make sure to present value those outflows.
We would've done that sooner if Toyota and Honda weren't insistent on making hybrids miserable. They not only invented the vehicles, they invented the public's opinion of them. Literally nobody has made Hybrids both accessible and desirable until now, until Ford did. Twenty-five years of lameness until Ford of all companies came along and build a hybrid that people actually want and can use for things other than being
