The 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo is a new vehicle based on an old idea: street trucks. Street trucks were an American phenomenon from the 1980s to 2000s, and they were low, slinky, and fast — the antithesis of stereotypical American trucks. They’ve been out of the spotlight for years, to my great dismay.
But life is cyclical, and street trucks are back (in the form of the Lobo only, for now). We’ll just have to see if modern America wants them.
Why This Truck Exists
The 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo is a derivative of the Maverick, Ford’s relatively new compact unibody truck that starts at $24,000 and is based on the Escape and Bronco Sport platform. The Maverick Lobo starts at $35,255 and has some obvious performance changes from the regular truck, but output from the EcoBoost engine (250 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque) remains the same across the lineup.
Compared to the regular Maverick, the Lobo is lower by half an inch in the front, 1.12 inches in the back, and 0.8 inches in roof height. The brakes are bigger, and the dual-piston front brake calipers come from the Ford Focus ST hot hatch in Europe. There’s also a transmission oil cooler, as well as a larger radiator and fan from the Maverick’s 4,000-pound “4K” towing package.
The Lobo also gets a special drive mode and a torque-vectoring rear drive unit from the Bronco Sport, but we’ll talk more about that later.
Ford calls the Maverick Lobo a “new canvas for modern street-truck builds,” and that’s what it is: A starting place where buyers can choose to stay or modify to the moon. The Lobo, to me, feels like a factory-modified truck using Ford parts-bin performance parts. That keeps costs down and, if you want, lets you make the Lobo your own with modifications.
2025 Ford Maverick Lobo: The Basics
- Price: $35,255 base ($42,345 as tested)
- Engine: Turbocharged 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine
- Transmission: 7-speed automatic with paddle shifters
- Drivetrain: All-wheel drive (AWD)
- Power: 250 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque
- Fuel Economy: 21 mpg city, 30 highway, and 24 combined
- Body Style: Five-seat unibody truck
What It Looks Like
The normal Ford Maverick looks the way I want any truck to look: small, utilitarian, and cool. I look at a Maverick and think: “Nice budget buy,” which is one of my favorite compliments for a car. The Maverick is well-styled but not flashy; it’s the truck you buy when you know what you need, and it looks the part.
The Lobo is that with a slightly higher cool factor. The grille has vertical, gloss-black slats, which matched the black roof and wheels on my truck. My tester Lobo had turbofan-style wheels, which basically look like giant dinner plates with holes around the edge — an easy “Hell yeah” from car enthusiasts, but a bold move for everyday buyers.
The Lobo looks like an enthusiast build of a Maverick, straight from the factory. The only styling change I’d make is to offer a lowering package that slams it to the ground.
What About The Inside?
Before seeing the Lobo, I thought the exterior styling would get most of Ford’s attention. That’s where most of the organic “street truck” marketing will come from when people see it on the street, so I figured the inside would be less special. I was wrong.
Inside the Lobo, there’s blue and lime accent stitching, as well as graffiti-splatter print on the seats. (The graffiti print is understated. If you zoom in on the photo above, you’ll see light splatters between the bolstering.)
Ford says the mix of multiple colors references streetwear trends, where not everything has to match perfectly in order to look cool. I briefly talked to the designer behind those colors, Kristen Keenan, and she told me was a designer for shoes like the LeBron 12, Kobe 9, and KD 6. The whole vision made sense — athletic shoes always do a great job of mixing different colors that don’t totally match but look good together, and that was the goal here. It worked.
The Lobo’s infotainment screen is responsive and easy to use, and one of my favorite features comes when you’re connecting a phone to the car. Often, I get a press car and need to hook a phone up, but the car won’t allow phone hookups while the vehicle is in motion — even if the passenger is working the phone (which is always the case for me).
In the Maverick, the system will ask: “Are you a passenger?” If you are, and you say you are, it will let you continue with the phone connection. It’s a small feature that means the world to me, since I wish for it weekly.
I only have two complaints about the interior of the Maverick. First, the buttons attached to the infotainment screen could be better allocated. There are six buttons below the screen, and I only agree with the placement of one of them: the camera button, which pulls up the exterior camera feeds. Aside from that, there are your emergency flashers, skip forward and backward, and a couple of other buttons you don’t need. I would’ve put the emergency flashers between the air vents and replaced all the other buttons with climate controls, since they’re what people immediately need and likely prefer tactile controls for.
My second complaint is that the seats could be more comfortable. To me, the Maverick seats are too flat; they feel like plane seats with no bolstering to hold you in, and in a performance street truck, a lack of bolstering is even more obvious under hard driving. This complaint isn’t universal, though — plenty of Maverick buyers tell me they love their seats, so I recommend trying them out and seeing how you feel if you’re interested in the truck.
How It Drives
It’s important to note here that somehow, the Maverick Lobo drive event happened during a torrential downpour in San Diego (yes, sunny California!). While Ford mapped out incredible canyon roads for us to drive the Lobo on, there was no way for my group to safely drive hard due to the weather. That means I’ll go over basic driving impressions here, but for hard driving, you’ll have to find someone who drove the car when it was dry outside.
We drove the Lobo back-to-back with the regular hybrid Maverick, and I couldn’t tell it was lower while driving. The steering rack — which comes from the Ford Kuga in the Lobo — did feel heavier than in the regular Maverick, but it didn’t feel super fast.
The EcoBoost engine sounded great in the Lobo, with a regular serenade of turbo-spooling. The truck was agile, too. Some of that is probably due to the lower ride height and improved suspension, and some of that is by virtue of it being a unibody. Unibodies are more car-like, thus are often more agile on the road.
In terms of comfort and noise, the interior of the Lobo wasn’t particularly loud or quiet, but it was echoey. I called a friend on my built-in speakerphone, not over the car’s system, and he said I sounded like I was flying an airplane. Unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of license.
The Lobo also has some cool driveability features that weather prevented us from trying out on the autocross course, such as “Lobo drive mode.” Ford says the mode improves cornering, grip, and stability, as well as minimizes understeer, and that it’s for closed courses only because it’ll feed the truck torque and reduce intervention by the stability-control system.
Many modern vehicles keep traction and stability control active, even when you’re on a closed course and use the usual controls to turn the systems “off.” Since systems like stability control kick in to make sure the vehicle doesn’t spin or do “unnatural” things — basically, putting it back in a straighter line — they make it impossible to do fun maneuvers like donuts or drifting (again, on a closed course).
Ford was so stoked on this feature that they set up the closed autocross course, but on my autocross day, the course flooded with rain and autocross got canceled. When we returned later and the sun was out, the whole course and medical crew was packed up, so we didn’t get to test the system at all. I’ll report back one day when I finally do test it.
Another cool feature of the Lobo is its twin-clutch rear drive unit with torque vectoring. I asked the Ford engineers about it, and they said it’s the same twin-clutch system that I’ve driven in the Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch. It’s a great system.
The twin-clutch rear-drive unit has two clutch packs, which control each rear drive wheel independently. This helps you in a lot of situations, off-road and on.
Off-road, it means that if you have your other three wheels without traction, one can propel the car forward on its own. On road and in situations like autocross, it means torque vectoring — which is the process of sending different amounts of torque to different wheels — can be used to help the vehicle move better during aggressive cornering.
I’ll add a helpful graphic Ford has about the on-road uses of the system:
I didn’t get to test this system like I wanted due to the torrential weather, but I’m glad it exists.
Does the 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo Fulfill Its Purpose?
The Ford Maverick Lobo isn’t an extreme street truck. It’s not full of horsepower, it’s not so low to the ground that you’ll scrape it, and there’s definitely room for more silliness. But Ford wants the Lobo to be a canvas for street-truck builds, and that’s exactly what it is.
The Lobo is a great starting place. I just can’t wait to see where owners take it.
I don’t know where you get $24,000. Base price for the least expensive Maverick is $26,210 (eco-boost FWD)
Hybrid starts at $27,960, it’s a $1750 option. These are base XL prices.
Destination fees are part of the cost of the vehicle and not optional. Destination for my Forester was $1420, and it came from Japan. Ford just games the window sticker by artificially lowering the price and jacking up the destination charge. I’m sure the dealer will play more games with you.
Toyota Tacoma, also made in Mexico, is $1500 destination charge. So Ford isn’t juicing it that hard.
I saw one of these facelifted Mavericks the other day, not the Lobo but still. I miss the headlights of the original, these upside down L shaped ones just feel like they are trying too hard.
I’m the complete opposite, actually. The pre-facelift headlights, to me, look like they are from the early 2000s. While the face of this is still iffy, it at least looks like it belongs in this decade.
Headlights of the original are still there. Dare you to look behind the flap, it’s a coverup!
The Lobo just makes me sad and angry that the Focus ST is gone.
Precisely why I am still driving mine!
It never rains in California,
But girl, let me warn ya:
It pours, man it pours…
Passenger seats have a sensor for the airbag. How have these lazy car makers not figured out how to integrate that to allow a passenger full access.
It comes down to legal liability, it’s a loophole that allows the driver access to a feature, but prevents the OEM from being sued because they “warned” the driver that only the passenger should use it. At which point if the driver still does it, it counts as intentional misuse and the OEM is cleared of liability when you plow through the side of bus of nuns going to prayer service for kids with cancer because you were trying to listen to the newest Joe Rogan podcast.
As Trucky said, it’s liability. The system will actually only ask if you’re the passenger if it detects a passenger in the seat. If no one is there it will just straight lock you out of stuff like pairing a phone
All it needs now is a custom plate that reads “TOMIZED”.
I know the weather isn’t your fault, but I was really looking forward to hearing how this actually drove.
I actually like the original more in this case only b/c it’s more unique, but Hyundai should bring the whale tail back.
The real solution imo has been right in front of us the whole time. It helps the shape and the storage.
Wagon.
Wrong article?
It is whoops. Too many autopian tabs open lol
As an X-Runner owner, I approve. The fact that Ford is releasing any type of street truck at all is impressive, kudos to the team who managed to push that through the labyrinthine approval process. Of course we all have ideas on taking it further, mostly a MT, but I’ll still be happy it exists at all.
There’s more margin in “special editions” and Ford loves them for this reason. There’s very little cost to Ford in mixing and matching parts that already exist and then add a little badging.
Don’t really dig the wheels. MT would really be appealing. I get the “canvas” approach. The rear diff is pretty neat that they put that in. Price on the Mav is really getting unappealing, but no mfr is really trying to lower the entry price to anything.
Its a bummer that Ford is just escalating the price.
Now…Imagine…Those wheels powdercoated white. Drool.
I’d do inappropriate things for a Manual AWD Maverick (especially a Tremor). The 8 speed auto is by far my least favorite part of my Maverick.
Pretty sure you can order that directly from Ford since they come on the Mach-E Rally
You can option a blacked out version of the Lariat 19″ wheels for a $100 if you prefer something more traditional over the turbofans.
We have Lobo, now all we lack are B.J. and the Bear.
Great callback.
A lowered truck would be appreciated for both the practical aspect of loading/unloading, as well as improving cog of the vehicle.
Now, can we drop in the 6MT (7) from the Ford Bronco into it?
Nope… Maverick is FWD based and the Bronco is RWD based. The most logical manual to swap in is from the Focus RS.
I guess Lobo drivers don’t need the juice box cubby on the dash.
The cubby went away on all ’25s as they now have the larger Sync 4 screen.
Teenagers are going to be begging for this truck once it hits the used market.
The new S10.
I have an 03 LS S10 and this ain’t it.
You’re right, it’s 22 years newer and you’re not a teenager today, nor will you be one in 10 years when it becomes an attainable vehicle for a teenager. Now whether any of them last ten years before the engine, rear differential, and transmission are blown up, that’s a completely different question.
I wish they just made an electric Maverick. You’d have better acceleration than the Lobo, probably better handling, and you wouldn’t be stuck with an automatic transmission and an ecoboom engine.
The Hybrid kind of fixes the issues you list.
Not as well as a BEV though.
There’s a reason nearly all BEV’s are unique chassis compared to any gasser or hybrid. It takes a ton of room and strength for the battery pack.
Isn’t the Mustang Mockery what you’re looking for instead?
The Mach-E is on a derivative of this same platform, so we can hold out hope
So it’s on a unique chassis not shared with gassers or hybrids. Being a unibody, that means it would require a full new set of stampings, major interior parts, and integration. Sharing a platform is a good chunk of cost, but less than 20% for a unibody. For all intent and purpose, it would be a brand new platform for a BEV Mav.
I miss honeycomb grills from the early 2000’s.
I’ve had a bunch of old Volvos, and this style of grille makes me think of the standard models, whereas the Turbos and (early on) Cross Countries would sometimes get eggcrate grilles.
Last week, a friend/colleague of a relative got one of these in grey with the nice-but-boring six-spoke alloys, and until I looked up what the ‘Lobo’ entailed, I’d assumed it was a soft street-truck appearance/suspension package atop a hopefully-AWD hybrid model, since he’d had a Crosstrek before and a Civic Hybrid at one point in the past.
Me want honeycomb… as well.
Dear Ford:
It’s loudly blue, it’s boosted, it’s got Awd. Please add one large hood scoop and some gold wheels, plus about 40 hp.
We’re so close truck-wrx. The T-WRX, if you will.
Ram called… they want the nickname of TRX back.
Reminds me of my sears catalog RC dune buggy.
Love the wheels, not sure if the rest is worth the price. Can we get a manual? No, ok fine…. whatever
Those wheels would look so much better in any other color but black.
I wonder when maverick prices will get so high as to start to kill sales. They do not seem as appealing at these higher prices.
What new vehicle would you buy instead of Maverick?
A 4×4 Frontier long box king cab is only $41K so an actual truck for less.
Ford should make a spec racing series with this pickup.
Nice but those wheels look like they’re borrowed from a Cybertruck.
I don’t understand the appeal in the least, but good for those who do to have something new and exciting.
The Lobos will sell well with the Hispanic car community, where mini-trucks have been and stayed especially popular. Helps that they brought over the LOBO name, which is iconic in Mexico (as they call the high trim F-150’s the LOBO there).
This is pretty much exactly what my spouse needs.
She wants something that drives sporty, but is regularly annoyed how she can’t fit anything in her sedan (furniture and yard-related things being the most common).
This way, she could do the truck-y things she likes to do, but still get the driving experience she expects. She HATES how body-on-frame trucks ride, I heard complaints weekly riding in my F150 (which only had 18s and lots of sidewall).
Yeah, as a Golf owner who loves driving her car but REALLY should be driving something a bit bigger, the Lobo is pretty interesting. I wish it had a manual, but that’s not a dealbreaker by any means.
No way Ford was targeting the 40-something corporate lawyer mom market, but here we are!
Lobo sounds like a Steve Guttenberg character.
Oh, it is!
I’m not really seeing $10K worth of upgrade here, even with another $7K of upgrade over that shown in the pics.
At first I thought the same but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It’s got a bunch of chassis changes, unique seats, unique body parts, fancy diff, upgraded heat exchangers and fancy brakes. There are some honest to goodness upgrades here, even if it’s parts bin stuff. I think if they massaged the tune for another 30HP nobody would bat an eye. It’s a turbocharged 4 banger. They could easily squeeze a few more ponies under the hood with ECU calibration and that would be icing on the cake.
Really neat truck, i’d love to try one out. Glad they exist, and a great 1st impression.