How Big Is the Ford Maverick, Anyway?
Our yearlong review Maverick Hybrid had us wondering how its size stacked up to trucks from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and today.
We’ve had our Ford Maverick for just over 18 months at this point, and they’re thick on the ground in the Detroit area where our truck lives. Even seeing them coming and going frequently, the perception of just how big they are seems to change. Sometimes the Maverick looks positively tiny; other times, much larger. To satisfy our curiosity about where the Maverick falls on the scale, we did some deep research to pull out comparables from the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s—the compact pickup’s heydays—and today. As the Maverick was just refreshed for 2025 (including a street truck version), we’ve used that model year for comparison and noted the spec differences of our 2023 long-term truck in the footnotes.
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Maverick vs. Today’s Compact Truck
There’s only one truck in the Maverick’s class today: the Hyundai Santa Cruz. But even though they share a class, their executions differ quite a lot. The Hyundai leans more into its SUV roots in terms of styling and its level of luxury, while the Ford is more truckish in features and looks. The Santa Cruz is a fine little trucklet, but we prefer the Maverick’s more honest, rough-and-tumble approach. That said, the Hyundai does offer more power and torque with its top-spec powertrain.
Maverick vs. Today’s Midsize Trucks
It also seemed worth seeing how the Maverick stacks up against today’s midsize trucks, including the Chevrolet Colorado, Nissan Frontier, Toyota Tacoma, and its Ford Ranger sibling. They’re all larger, of course—about 1 to 2 feet longer, 3 to 8 inches wider, and 6 inches to 1 foot taller—and the Nissan and Toyota offer the choice of multiple wheelbases. They can all tow more, as well, but the Maverick is in the ballpark in terms of payload.
Maverick vs. 1990s Compact Trucks
Now here’s where things got really interesting. The Maverick is longer than compact trucks from the 1990s (which is when I got my driver’s license), outside of the long-wheelbase Chevy S-10. It’s also wider and taller and can haul and tow about as well as the bunch. So if you ever looked at a ’97 Ranger or S-10 and thought it looked tiny, you were right, at least in comparison to the Maverick.
We also adjusted the 2025 Maverick’s base price to 1997 dollars, and it’s about 10 to 15 percent more expensive. Given the modern Ford’s fuel efficiency gains, feature set, power and torque, and massive leaps in comfort and refinement, that’s not surprising—and a premium we’d gladly pay in a fantasy land where these trucks are for sale alongside one another.
Maverick vs. 1980s Compact Trucks
In the 1980s, the biggest compact trucks were about a foot shorter overall than their 1990s counterparts, but the older trucks were even smaller on the other end of the spectrum. In fact, the modern Ford Maverick is more than 2 feet longer than the short-wheelbase, regular cab Isuzu P’up and Toyota Pickup models, and no truck in this sample set stretches within 6 inches of a Maverick. This era also saw the domestic companies starting to develop small trucks for America themselves. As a result, the available models were a mix of fresh trucks like the S-10 and Ranger and older Japanese (and rebadged Japanese) models.
The modern Ford also has them all handily beat in terms of output; the most powerful of the bunch is still 81 horses shy. It was also the era of double-digit base horsepower. These little trucks could tow and haul with the Maverick, though, thanks to body-on-frame architecture and a general lack of relative curb weight thanks to skimpier feature sets and less robust crash structure. And here’s something that several of the trucks have on the Ford Maverick: an available diesel engine. The price gap has grown to about 30 percent.
Maverick vs. 1970s Compact Trucks
Here’s where the really small trucks come into play: The Ford Maverick is a full 31 inches longer than a basic 1975 Toyota truck, and even the longest base compact truck here is more than 2 feet shorter. All of the older trucks hail from Japan, as the Chevy was an Isuzu and the Ford was a Mazda. The Maverick towers over each of our ’70s trucks by 6 inches or more, and it outguns them by as much as 117 horsepower, a huge gap when you’re talking 74 versus 191. But slow as these old mini trucks were, they could still nearly equal the Mav in terms of payload. Impressive considering they were cheaper still relative to the Maverick’s converted price.
Unfortunately, reliable towing numbers (and payload in the case of the Toyota) proved essentially impossible to come by. If you have reliable sources—brochures, service manuals, etc., not forums—that can fill in or correct any of the numbers in this story, please send me photos in an e-mail and I’ll update this story.
How Our Maverick Is Doing
Back to the present for an update on our 2023 Ford Maverick Hybrid XLT. It continues to chug along as a faithful servant. It occasionally sits and waits while we’re driving new test cars but hasn’t failed to start or given us any issues. Another two recalls found our mailbox, however, the first for possible taillight failure and the second for a rearview camera image that may freeze. Neither issue has affected our truck, but the first has already been repaired via software reflash. No fix is available yet for the other. One warranty repair was performed for a roof seal that slightly worked its way loose.
We recently put on a set of Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 winter tires to get us through the icier months in Michigan, and the little Ford truck hasn’t let us down, once again proving what we already know: A good set of winter tires is more helpful than all-wheel drive, all other things being equal. We’re still seeing about 35 mpg overall—once again, blame the 75-to-80-mph highway commutes that dominate its runtime—and no other problems have cropped up.
KEY
*2022-2024 Maverick: 199.7-200.7 in
†2022-2024 Maverick: 68.7-69.5 in
**2022-2024 Maverick: 1,200-1,500 lb
††2022-2024 Maverick: 191-250 hp
§2022-2024 Maverick: 155-277 lb-ft
•adjusted for model year of compared trucks
More on Our Long-Term 2023 Ford Maverick Hybrid:
Erik Johnson fell in love with cars before he could talk, carrying that passion through graduation from the University of Michigan. He's led digital content for Automobile and Car and Driver, and now oversees print and digital content for MotorTrend. He still pinches himself every day.
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