The last time I got behind the wheel of a Ford Maverick, its paint had seen better days, its springy bench seat was—wait, that’s actually my good buddy’s 1974 Maverick. Let’s try that again: the last time I got behind the wheel of a new Maverick, I thought to myself, “drop this thing a few inches, give it sticky tires, and it’d be a friggin’ sick way to tear up an autocross course.” Two years later, this 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo manifests that idea—and it’s indeed friggin’ sick.

What’s new for 2025?

This year, the Maverick receives a thorough refresh that takes a very good trucklet, and makes it even better. Ford freshened the Maverick’s styling inside and out, gave it a bigger screen, figured out a way to make the hybrid all-wheel-drive, and introduced two new variants. Well, one and a half; the Tremor, which used to be an option package on the XLT, is now its own model. But it’s this Maverick Lobo that’s getting everyone fired up.

Evidently, someone at Ford is either on the same wavelength as I am, or they’re really in-tune with what people are doing to their Mavs via the aftermarket and simply said, “hey, let’s give them a head start.” Either way, the Lobo is a new model that’s a throwback to the “street truck” scene throughout the 1980s and 90s, channeling the same energy with its mechanical upgrades which I’ll get into in a bit, plus friggin’ sick bottlecap-style wheels and colour-keyed accents and body kit. What I dig the most about the Lobo is that it takes the finished product about 80 per cent there, leaving you to chase that final 20 per cent of rad perfection—once the warranty’s up, of course.

Street truck on the streets, hot hatch in the sheets

That’s because the Maverick is still a Bronco Sport underneath, which is a blockier Escape, which is a jacked-up Focus—which still exists in Europe, including the ST. That’ll automatically sour some buyers, but that’s very much the key to the Lobo’s closeted hot hatch personality. For every person who wants a pickup truck because they tower over everyone else on the road and tow a boat once a year, someone else still cares about having a right-sized hauler that’s great on gas and easy to live with. And for every dude-bro out there who slaps a lift kit and knobbies onto their F-150 pavement princess, someone else out there asks, “how hard could it really be to slam a Maverick?”

All Lobos come with a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine. A power bump would’ve been nice—it’s rated at 250 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque, same as every other non-hybrid Mav—but the Lobo does use a “different” transmission, and I mean that very loosely. The Lobo’s seven-speed automatic is pretty much the same transmission as the eight-speed auto, only with second gear deleted.

Ford’s reasoning is sound: on an autocross course, fumbling with shifting gears costs time, so deleting the eight-speed’s second gear and making third longer provides a slightly bigger window of uninterrupted acceleration between gates. As someone who shifts into second and leaves it there for the rest of the run, I’m here for it.

Along with the transmission tweak, the Lobo sits a half-inch lower up front and 1.1 inches lower out back versus the standard Maverick. It also gets paddle shifters, a torque-vectoring rear diff, upsized front brakes with calipers from the Euro-spec Focus ST clamping down on them, and the larger radiator and transmission cooler from the regular Maverick’s 4K Tow package. There’s also a Lobo drive mode, adding some leeway to the electronic nannies and enabling the upgraded diff’s side-to-side torque split.

Blank canvas

All told, the Lobo’s predilection for corner-carving shines. Its steering is well-weighted and feels more eager than the standard Maverick, but not such that it feels overly darty on the highway. Carry a bit of extra speed into a tight on-ramp and the Lobo surprises with you with much more grip and much less body roll, resisting the urge to understeer for longer than you’d expect. The upgraded brakes feel great, and it’s legitimately tail-happy in its Lobo drive mode, with the stability control dialled back and the upgraded diff working its magic.

But there’s a pretty big catch: the Maverick Lobo can’t actually compete on an autocross course, at least out of the box. Depending on where you live, you can complete in almost anything as long as it’s one-to-one, meaning it isn’t taller than it is wider. Despite being lowered, the Maverick Lobo isn’t quite one-to-one, and the Goodyear Territory all-season tires are a curious choice for something with performance intentions.

But this comes across as intentional. If you’re in the camp where the lip kit and sweet wheels alone are plenty, you don’t have to sacrifice ride quality and comfort to get the look. At the same time, if you’re in the camp that’ll tinker with it anyway, it feels like Ford knows this. They’ve left room, literally, to bring it home with even more of a drop, stickier tires, and maybe a Stage 1 tune—once the warranty’s done, of course.

Final thoughts

Still, it’s not like at least upgrading to summer tires will void the warranty of the 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo. It needs a few bits to tie it all together, but its rad looks and hardware upgrades are a great place to start, and it’s cool to see Ford leaves it up to you to leave it as-is or bring it home. Perfection is a fickle thing, anyway, but for the love of God, think of your warranty.