Ford Trademarks "F-150 Lobo," "Maverick Lobo" Names, Their Ultimate Use Unclear

Lobo, in Spanish, means "wolf." But for Ford, Lobo has another meaning: F-150. In Mexico, for more than 25 years, the full-size F-150 pickup has been sold as the "Lobo"—not the "F-150 Lobo," but merely "Lobo." Sure, a lot of cars get unique names for certain markets. But the Lobo name itself might—emphasis on "might"—be making a trip northward to the U.S., per a trademark filing uncovered by Ford Authority recently.

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And not just on the F-150, as there's also a filing for the Maverick. Ford recently trademarked both "F-150 Lobo" and "Maverick Lobo," but there's not a lot of solid information beyond that about what said truck might be. Some, like Ford Authority itself, posit that "Lobo" will be a street-oriented performance version—think a slammed Raptor set up for street duty. That's a role that historically might have gone to a F-150 Lightning, but that moniker's been swiped for the EV variant (which is plenty quick). So, nothing definitive, but some of the logic squares.

By this logic, a Maverick Lobo could be the ultimate performance compact Ford—its all-wheel-drive, turbocharged 2.0-liter powertrain could certainly be adapted for such duty. We thought about a street truck like this when the Maverick was launched, imagining it as a Maverick ST, but perhaps "Lobo" will be to trucks what SVT/ST used to be for performance cars.

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Or it could be a whole lot of nothing. All companies protect their intellectual property in a variety of ways. The "Lobo" trademarks could just be to prevent some competitor, real, imagined, or hypothetical, from squatting on the name—even if Ford has no intention of producing any Lobos outside of Mexico. If the chatter gets more concrete, if truly compelling spy photos emerge, or if a Ford source howls at us, we'll let you know.