From the September/October issue of Car and Driver.
In the movie Dazed and Confused, Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson brags about his Chevelle's 390 horsepower—"Let me tell you what Melba Toast is packing right here"—only to be summarily dismissed by Trans Am–driving tough guy Clint. "You gotta get some tires," Clint says. "These are pizza cutters, man." He meant that figuratively, but the 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo's standard Turbofan wheels look like literal pizza cutters, and its all-season tires offer about as much grip. The Lobo has a lot of the right ingredients for on-pavement fun, but Melba Toast needs a new set of shoes.
The Maverick Lobo looks the part of a performance truck, crouched on a suspension that's lowered a half-inch up front and 1.1 inches at the rear. A torque-vectoring rear differential is on hand, larger front brake rotors are fitted, and the Euro-market Focus ST donates its front brake calipers. The cooling system gets an upgrade, with both a bigger radiator and the transmission cooler from the towing package. The seven-speed automatic transmission is unique to the Lobo—it's the eight-speed, really, but programmed to skip second gear. Ford figures that if you're driving on a tight track or an autocross course, a wider gap in the lower ratios is actually preferable to constant hunting between gears.
Steering-wheel shift paddles, another Lobo exclusive, are a boon to driver involvement and allow for playful lugging of the engine to maximize the breathy turbo screes and chuffs emanating from underhood. Lobo mode unlocks more noise, upping the sound at wide-open throttle from 75 to 77 decibels. It also enables the Lobo's frisky side, activating torque vectoring and dialing back the stability-control intervention. While Lobo mode is bratty fun, the dash display might oversell it a bit—the graphic depicts an autocross course painted with skid marks while warnings admonish the driver that Lobo mode is for "spirited closed course driving" and "track use only."
When we did hit the track, the 250-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine delivered acceleration similar to that of the other 2.0-liter Mavericks. The Lobo hits 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and runs the quarter-mile in 14.5 seconds at 95 mph, the former stat 0.1 second ahead of the Maverick XLT FX4 and the latter dead even—hey, who needs second gear? What was surprising is that this lowered, torque-vectoring street truck didn't trounce the FX4 in braking and handling. Quite the opposite, we're afraid.
From 70 mph, the FX4, on its Falken Wildpeak A/T3W all-terrain tires, stopped in 172 feet. In the same test, the Lobo required 188 feet. Ford fits Goodyear Wrangler Territory HT all-season tires to the Lobo, and while they're efficient—we saw 32 mpg at 75 mph, 2 mpg better than the EPA's highway rating—we were left wanting stickier rubber. In Lobo mode, the Maverick was tail-happy and exuberant, wanting to drift, but nonetheless averaged only 0.85 g on the skidpad. That's an improvement over the FX4's 0.82 g but not to the extent that we'd hoped for from a truck with road-course aspirations.
The Lobo does at least look the part, with a body kit that would have been called "ground effects" back in the heyday of the slammed minitruck. Those black 19-inch wheels evoke a tarmac rally stage, and the interior gets gussied up with Grabber Blue and Electric Lime stitching. The only ergonomic whiff is the placement of the giant Pro Trailer Backup Assist knob in prime dashboard real estate right about where you'd expect the stereo volume knob to be. That, meanwhile, is over yonder to the right, and smaller. If you're inept at backing up trailers but do it more often than you adjust stereo volume, then this arrangement makes sense. Otherwise, not so much.
There are two Lobo configurations, with the standard-issue truck priced at $37,625 and the high trim going for $43,120. While the basic Lobo is probably more in sync with the Maverick's budget ethos, the high trim does bring goodies such as heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a sunroof, a power-sliding rear window, and a B&O sound system. Dealer-installed options include bed lighting, a console vault, and Ford's signature keyless-entry keypad. Smart dealers will add one other off-menu item that could take the Lobo to its true potential. Say, how much for a set of summer tires?
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