The Ford Maverick brought mainstream automakers back into a market they neglected for nearly a decade — compact trucks. Now, a rumor says it will bring them into a fun and passionate corner of the automotive world they’ve ignored for at least that long — street trucks.
About the Maverick
In case you haven’t seen one, the Maverick is the first true small truck an American automaker has built in roughly a decade. About the size of a midsize car, it offers four doors and a small bed perfect for weekend projects and hauling mountain bikes to the trailhead. It can’t compete with the hauling and towing capacities full-size truck ads brag about. But that’s fine. It’s for people who know they’d never need that.
The Maverick has been such a smash hit that Ford can’t build it fast enough. Last year, the company sold a year’s production run in six days. This year, it expects to do much the same.
About Street Trucks
For the uninitiated, street trucks are the low riders of the pickup world. Creative auto shops build them by lowering trucks and using every trick they know to speed them up. Building a street truck is an act of artistic defiance. It requires throwing out what truckmakers advertise — ground clearance, towing power, and off-road chops — and replacing it with sports car traits and styling.
Enthusiast site Ford Authority says Ford — the same company that Raptorizes everything, and we mean everything — is planning its own anti-Raptor.
A Lowered Maverick With Added Speed
Unidentified sources within Ford tell the site a Maverick Street Truck is in development. “It will feature a lowered suspension and big wheels,” the site says, and will “sit low.”
Powertrain is a mystery for now. But we can’t help but notice that the 2.3-liter 4-cylinder EcoBoost engine found in the 2024 Ranger, with its 270 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque, would fit nicely in the Maverick’s engine bay. The Maverick also shares a platform with the Focus ST, a high-performance small car Ford builds for the European market. The company already has upgraded suspension components for the platform.
The rumor could easily stay a rumor. Ford doesn’t need to build special editions to sell out of Maverick trucks. But since Ford has made no secret of its plans to build as many special editions as possible, a Maverick ST would make a lot of sense for the brand.
