2022 Ford Maverick

Redefining the (small) truck.

- By Mike Floyd

We're rolling along a Tennessee road in the all-new Ford Maverick when we pull up behind a beat-up, '90s-era Ranger. One quick glance and it's easy to see how much bigger the Maverick is. Ah, but the Ranger is a body-on-frame design, what some call a true truck. In the end, it's all relative: There's a new-generation Ranger, and it's more than 10 inches longer than the unibody-architecture Maverick, while the latter can easily do as many truck things as that battle-scarred old Ranger ever could.

Our first stint bopping around Nashville and the surrounding environs was in a base front-wheel-drive Maverick XL. Its optional 2.0-liter EcoBoost turbo I-4 with 250 hp and 277 lb-ft of torque mates to an eight-speed automatic transmission; mash the accelerator pedal to the floor, and it takes a beat or two to get to the powerband, but when it does, the front wheels chirp, the traction control light flickers, and the engine's muted chain saw crescendo reaches toward its coda. Yep, the 2.0-liter makes more than enough power to motivate the roughly 3,600-pound Maverick.