Livin’ La Vida Lobo: Life With Ford’s New 2025 Maverick Sport Truck

They say it’s cliche to start off an automotive review with a history lesson, but when it comes to the 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo, I’m afraid it’s unavoidable. Maybe you’re too young to remember the late 1980s and early 1990s, the era of the “sport truck” craze, or maybe you just tried your best to ignore it as it was happening. The formula was simple enough: Take a compact pickup, usually a Ford Ranger or Chevrolet S-10, and instead of making it a lifted off-road monster like today’s trends require, you slammed it to the street through suspension modifications, gave it some sweet wheels and a crazy neon paint job (usually involving the color teal somewhere), and maybe added some other attention-getting elements to the interior. There were several magazines devoted to this trend, like Minitruckin’, Sport Truck and a few others. Sport trucks were cheap, plentiful, easy to modify and frankly looked pretty damn cool. But like all trends, they faded away.

… Until a young designer showed up at Ford not long ago and wanted to try something to rekindle interest in the kind of trucks he was too young to have known the first time around. He turned the Maverick compact pickup into a modern interpretation of some of those classic sport trucks, but with some decidedly new tweaks and ideas, and Ford management was so taken with the execution that it greenlighted it for production.

The Maverick Lobo might not look like a pink-and-teal-pinstriped, lowered ‘91 Ranger, but the new truck is decidedly better to drive than anything the sport truck mod community ever produced. And after living with one for a week, I love it for the fact that it’s one of the only sporty things you can buy with a Ford badge these days that doesn’t say Mustang, too. But what’s it like to live with?

Related: 2025 Ford Maverick Hybrid and Lobo Review: The People’s Perfect Truck

What Is a Maverick Lobo?

You might be aware that the Maverick got a freshening for the 2025 model year, with some new options, some new styling, new interior tech and a few other tweaks. The new Lobo trim level is part of that redo, and it adds some go-fast parts and unique styling cues. It starts at a more-than-reasonable $37,625 (all prices include destination fee) but can top $43,000 if you start adding options. That’s still a very reasonable price for a pickup these days, even a small one like the Maverick.

The only powertrain you can get is the Maverick’s turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine making 250 horsepower and 277 pounds-feet of torque, so no boost in power versus other trims that use this engine. But unlike the regular turbo-engine Mavericks that have an eight-speed automatic transmission, this one uses the seven-speed automatic transmission from the European Ford Focus ST. It’s tuned to be sportier and provide punchier, snappier acceleration with quick gear changes.

The suspension has been lowered front and rear and given a sportier tune with more aggressive shocks and springs. Absolutely gorgeous gloss-black 19-inch “turbofan” wheels have been fitted with some seriously meaty tires while the brake system’s been upgraded with the Focus ST’s big front brakes. The European Ford Kuga SUV’s quicker steering rack is present, and the Maverick Tremor’s torque-vectoring dual-clutch rear differential is used, but it’s been retuned for pavement grip instead of two-track slip. That rear diff is activated by switching the Maverick into a new “Lobo mode,” which turns up the volume on the sporty adjustments while turning down the stability control nannies.

The result of these mods is a mild performance upgrade to … well, what is still very much a compact pickup truck. But when you consider that Ford no longer offers any cars in the U.S. aside from the Mustang, and that the Maverick uses the same global platform that underpins things like the overseas Focus, raiding the parts bin to come up with the sportiest thing you can buy in a Ford showroom that isn’t a Mustang or an off-road truck is an interesting experiment.

Is the Maverick Lobo Any Good?

People climbing into a Maverick Lobo and expecting a Focus ST with an extra-large trunk will be disappointed; the changes to the Maverick that make it the Lobo are best seen as a starting point for aftermarket tuners, owners who want to make some more serious modifications and enthusiasts looking for a lightly modified canvas they can personalize.

On the street, the Lobo is balanced, rides far better than you’d expect it to, has decidedly improved steering feel over a standard Mav and, when you slip it into either Sport or Lobo mode, provides snappy acceleration with excellent quick shifts from its automatic transmission. It feels tighter and more buttoned down than a regular turbo Maverick, with better steering response thanks to the quicker Kuga rack, stronger brakes and improved grip. It’s also surprisingly quiet and refined, and while there’s some additional piped-in engine noise to amp up the sporty pretense, it’s not obnoxious in the slightest.

Despite not having any extra power from its turbocharged 2.0-liter engine, the Lobo makes better use of the power it does have thanks to its unique transmission and throttle mapping. It feels quicker than other Mavericks I’ve driven, and it certainly doesn’t mind being tossed around or raced from stoplight to stoplight. Out on my favorite Southeast Michigan backroads, the Lobo is entertaining and surprisingly agile, but it’s no sports car — the high seating position ruins any pretense. There’s significant body roll despite the tightened-up suspension, and the overall impression I get from driving the Lobo aggressively is that this is an excellent starting point for someone wanting to go further with on-road performance mods.

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Or, if you’re not into modifications and potentially voiding your warranty, it’s an excellent alternative to the Maverick Tremor for people who want a sporty truck but have zero plans to go off-road. Not everybody wants to play in the dirt, but off-road trucks are the main option these days for people seeking rigs with more performance. The Lobo feels like an experiment to see if sport trucks from the old days, like the 1990-93 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 454 SS, 2004-06 Dodge Ram SRT-10 and even the original 1993-95 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning (the gas one with the 351 Windsor V-8, not the all-electric pickup), have a place in today’s world — albeit with much lower performance specs.

I have to say, as one of those people who doesn’t go off-roading terribly often but who loves the idea of a Maverick pickup in the driveway, the Lobo would absolutely be the one I’d go for out of the whole lineup. It’s everyday usable and comfortable, has decent small-truck hauling and towing capability, but provides an added measure of driving fun. And for Maverick tuners, it’s an incredible platform for adding more performance and capability (engine chip, anyone?). It’s a glimmer of hope that at least one automaker realizes that there’s potential “white space” opportunity for a reborn on-road sport truck niche where nobody currently offers anything. Here’s hoping the Lobo is a sufficient success to make other truck makers take notice.

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