The 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo isn’t a big truck. Nope, the Lobo is small, at least by modern truck standards. That means it’s about the size of an old Ford F-150 from the Clinton administration or a Chevy Silverado from the Reagan years. And because the full-size American pickup truck has supersized along with the American waistline, the Maverick Lobo looks positively tiny parked next to a 2025 Ford Super Duty, which is now roughly the same mass and volume as a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. Instead, the 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo is about making small feel big enough.

At 201 inches long, the 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo is a little wolf with blackout trim, an inch-lower ride stance, a name that sounds like a Marvel antihero and a hint of sport truck swagger that makes you forget that it’s rational — because nothing kills a truck’s cool factor faster than admitting you bought it for rational reasons. They are supposed to say things about your virility, your solvency, your tool collection. The Maverick Lobo lights a cigarette and squints into the desert sun.

But don’t get hung up on the Lobo’s smallness. Most of us don’t actually need a truck the size of a duplex. We don’t need dually fenders wide enough to double as pickleball courts, nor do we need to lord over traffic like some NATO observer. We need to haul mulch on a Saturday morning, carry mountain bikes, or make a Home Depot run without wedging wallboard into the back of a Corolla. And we need to do it in something that doesn’t guzzle gasoline like its pledging allegiance to the Saudi royal family.

Actually, this trucklet makes you realize how absurd most full-size trucks have become. You can actually see out of it. You can park it without an aircraft marshaller. You can bob and weave through traffic with the same level of effort it takes to order a burrito. It drives like a car, thanks to enhanced brakes, performance-tuned steering, on-road tuned suspension, lowered ride height and specially tuned springs and shocks. There’s actual body control, fairly responsive steering and a 2.0-liter turbocharged four- and seven-speed transmission that delivers 250 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque to all four wheels with the urgency of a coked-up squirrel. You can fling it around an off-ramp and feel like you’re participating in traffic rather than hovering above it in the bridge of an aircraft carrier. But it feels no faster than other Maverick models. And while it rides an inch lower, lending it a meaner stance, the Maverick isn’t offered with a manual transmission — an oversight in this segment. To compensate, there are column-mounted shift paddles that allow for manual gear control. It’s marginally quicker than a stock Maverick, but not by much.

Inside, you’ll find a plethora of plastic cubbies, bins and slots that feel like they were designed by people who actually haul stuff instead of by consultants with advanced degrees in focus groups. The seats are somewhat comfortable, but Ford accountants nixed any ability to tilt the driver’s seat cushion, which is inexcusable given its $42,385 price. The infotainment is functional, while the Maverick’s 4.5-foot bed is large enough to carry 4×8 plywood on top of the wheel wells, so you can live out the Home Improvement fantasy. There’s even rear under-seat storage.

And, of course, it has an 8-inch digital instrument cluster and a 13.2-inch infotainment touchscreen that’s thoughtfully simple to use at first glance. It comes with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, 360-degree camera and voice recognition. But the 8-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system was surprisingly mediocre.

The Maverick Lobo is the truck for people who like the idea of a truck, but also like the idea of saving money, saving space and saving themselves from the absurdity of a four-figure pickup truck payment. It’s for those who get hives at the thought of filling a 36-gallon fuel tank. It’s the truck that proves we don’t need to keep supersizing pickups. You can park your Maverick Lobo outside Starbucks, walk in, get a coffee and be gone before Chevy Silverado or Ram 1500 drivers finish maneuvering their rolling monuments into a space that barely fits. And that’s why the Maverick is so fetching. It works in the real world, where most pickup trucks don’t. As it turns out, the 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo is plenty. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what a truck is supposed to be.

2025 Ford Maverick Lobo

Base price: $42,345

Engine: Turbocharged 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder

Horsepower/Torque: 250/277 pound-feet

EPA rating (combined city/highway): 24 mpg

Fuel required: 87 Octane

Length/Width/Height: 201/73/68 inches

Ground clearance: 7.3 inches

Payload: 1,045 pounds

Cargo bed capacity: 33 cubic feet

Towing capacity: 2,000 pounds

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