The 2025 Ford Maverick Compact Pickup Truck's Redesign Looks Sporty (and Awesome)
This is probably the production-ified sport truck we wanted, with cues straight from an eye-popping SEMA concept.
We’ve been expecting, and hoping for, a Ford Maverick–based street performance–type truck for a while now. A while back, we did a little wishful thinking about a potential Maverick ST, noting that the 2.0-liter EcoBoost I-4 could be easily swapped for the 2.3-liter unit in a number of the Maverick’s platform-mates, up to including the 345-pony version in the departed Ford Focus RS. But while visions of parts bin powertrains dance in our heads, we also now have to contend with the completely uncovered and decidedly sporty 2025 Ford Maverick (badged as a Lariat, at least) spotted recently.
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What is it? Is this the ST we wanted? An appearance package, possibly with the “Lobo” name Ford patented earlier? It’s too early to tell, but we can tell you about what’s new and what we can see. First of all, check out that revised front end. A large body-colored element radically changes the front end appearance, with the thicker C-shaped headlights of the current Maverick replaced by thinner apostrophe-shaped units. The grille remains roughly the shame shape, but loses the element that bisects it and connects to the headlights in favor a unit with a vertical-slot pattern. The lower fascia gets an inset central element with a smaller lower grille, which in this example doesn’t appear to have much in the way of a grille insert in front of it. It’s flanked by two inset elements with small, square foglight instead of the rectangular, semi-flush blocking plates on the current model. Also note that the lower fascia has more body color than a given current Maverick.
Around the side, the lower cladding is also body-colored, including the wrap-around part of the rear bumper. It gives the appearance of aero side cladding, but it doesn’t appear to be different in shape than what’s on the current Maverick—it’s just body-colored. Also, note the black roof, another point of differentiation between current and future trucks.
The wheels remind us a bit of the turbofan-style wheels from the wild Tucci concept from SEMA a few years ago. That slammed sport truck got a lot of mental gears turning about the Maverick as a basis for mini-truck builds, and with good reason. It was well-done. An echo of those wheels appears here, and they look good, although there’s an awful lot of fender gap (and sidewall) for this wheel style.
Whether this represents a sport model, a new appearance package (perhaps a milder "ST-Line" trim like you can buy on the Escape SUV), or something else remains to be seen, but we feel like this is a good preview of what the 2025 model year changes will bring, at least generally speaking. And from what we can see, the changes are good. Even with a different grille insert and unpainted lower bits, the new front end should look a little better than the arguably more cutesy current truck, which is attractive despite very large, toddler-like headlights for its frontal area. As far as refresh/midcycle redesigns go, this looks like a winner aesthetically.
Like a lot of the other staffers here, Alex Kierstein took the hard way to get to car writing. Although he always loved cars, he wasn’t sure a career in automotive media could possibly pan out. So, after an undergraduate degree in English at the University of Washington, he headed to law school. To be clear, it sucked. After a lot of false starts, and with little else to lose, he got a job at Turn 10 Studios supporting the Forza 4 and Forza Horizon 1 launches. The friendships made there led to a job at a major automotive publication in Michigan, and after a few years to MotorTrend. He lives in the Seattle area with a small but scruffy fleet of great vehicles, including a V-8 4Runner and a C5 Corvette, and he also dabbles in scruffy vintage watches and film cameras.
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