How An SUV Option Could Make The Ford Maverick An Even Bigger Sales Success

Over the years, Doritos has offered over 100 flavors of a product that started out as unflavored Toasted Corn (the first flavor being Taco, not Nacho Cheese in case you were wondering). Crocs took its foam-rubbery material (official name: Croslite) and went beyond shoes to making handbags and backpacks. Chrysler molded its K platform into everything from sports coupes and station wagons to luxury sedans and minivans.

This is understandable. If you’re trying to succeed in the battle of any marketplace, using some variation of a time-tested and successful weapon is a pretty sound idea. As Sun Tzu wrote in the The Art Of War, “If you can sell more Chia pets than it is possible to make, go ahead and create Chia rams, Chia hedgehogs, and even Chia Bob Ross or David Hasselhoff heads.” Actually, I don’t think that’s in the book but if General Tzu were around today and not in the fifth century BC I’m sure he would totally sprout – sorry, spout –  out something similar. It’s just common sense.

Of course, car makers continue to do the same thing, if not quite as prolifically as Chrysler did. For example, the success of the single model of the new generation Mini that debuted in 2001 spawned so many different body styles today that I couldn’t even list them all without looking at the website. Ford offers two different versions of the popular revived off-road icon Bronco. Surprisingly though, the Blue Oval brand has yet to do the same kind of expansion with their other sales juggernaut: the Maverick unibody compact pickup.

It seems like everyone either owns one or is trying to buy one of these things now. Have you not been tempted to take a look or to pull the trigger?  If not, I think I might know why, and I’m here to help put your ass in a version of the Maverick that you won’t be able to resist.

Yeah, But I Don’t Want A Pickup!

The Maverick has turned out to be a lightning-in-a-bottle sort of product for Ford that’s rather unmatched in the market and selling strongly. Here’s a car-like small pickup with truck-like looks that give it a certain credibility that ostensible competitors like the Honda Ridgeline just ain’t got. The media has raved over the Maverick in reviews from writers like our own Matt Hardigree, who loved this thing so much that he swore he’d buy one and then went out and replaced his Subaru with, what? A Honda SUV?

I’m honestly not surprised. As cool as the Maverick is, for many buyers (or spouses of buyers) there’s an aversion to owning a pickup. Sure, you can get a cover for the bed but it’s not the same as having a roof-height enclosed cargo area. As Jason reported a little while back, Ford is seemingly considering putting a bed-expanding mid gate into the Maverick, but until that happens the cargo area of this small pickup is indeed quite compact.

This is a problem for Ford. Sure, the folks in Dearborn can just say that SUV buyers should look at their smaller Escape or Bronco Sport models instead. They’re both decent enough offerings, but they’re smaller and they lack the bare-basic charms of the Maverick. What’s worse is that while the Maverick might be a rather unique product, once you get into the compact SUV category there are literally dozens of other choices for you to compare with.

Wait, if you want an SUV that’s the same length as a Maverick can’t the Ford dealer just tell you to get an Explorer. which even offers a small third row? You could, but again that’s a choice many young buyers might find to be a bit too much like a modern-day Taurus or Crown Vic: a ubiquitous cop-car-adjacent product that you could cross-shop with similar Japanese or Korean offerings all day long. Besides, at a starting price of over $40,000, that Explorer is a good ten grand more expensive than the Mav.

A Maverick SUV then seems like a no-brainer, but the renderings of what this might look like that I’ve seen from AI “artists” are rather lacking. It seems that they forgot to put prompts in the system like “looks cool” or “does not look like a shrunken Expedition.” Just extending the roof back over the cargo bed just kills the fun aspect of this little truck, but I think that I can take a different approach.

You Get A Maverick! You Get A Maverick!

At some point, our own Jason Torchinsky has said that if circumstances ever dictated that only one car would be allowed in all of the United States, the Ford Maverick would probably be the ideal vehicle for the task. It just does so much so well. Indeed, I’ve found the Maverick to be a blank canvas for making a variety of different versions such as a two-door convertible:

When our own Beau Boeckmann recently partnered with fabled German turner bb-Auto, I proposed a bespoke custom version with an openable top:

However, it’s the enclosed SUV format of Maverick that Ford should really consider building to get the remainder of the American buying public to purchase one. I see a way to rather easily make one and still keep the inherent “Maverickness.”

The term “form follows function” is a design idiom that’s often overused, but it certainly rings true quite often. In the case of our Maverick SUV (for which we’ll revive the Flex nameplate), there are two functional aspects to the conversion to a “wagon” that will dictate the shape.

First of all, even though Ford has plenty of cash on hand to tool up for an all-new SUV body style, let’s say they didn’t. I’d like to take a cue from the second- and third-generation Broncos where the rear roof section was actually an add-on unit over the “bed”. This was something that I explored recently with an idea for a new Ranger-based “larger” Bronco design.

For whatever reason, the highly visible seam turns out to be a design asset and not a liability; you could even go two-tone like the old Broncos did for an even more distinctive look. I’ll use this approach with the Maverick Flex. I am not saying that you could unbolt and lift this roof unit off the Maverick as if it were an OBS Bronco or an early Toyota 4Runner, but I’m also not saying that you couldn’t. Here’s a side view of the two versions:

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Here’s the Maverick Flex SUV in Lariat trim and Velocity Blue. Compared to the pickup, the front end features an expanded black bumper area that would look great with an optional push bar, and I’ve installed Lamborghini Sterrato-style LED driving lights in the voids under the headlights.

The next function-driven aspect of the design is the raised height of the rear roof section. Considering that the Maverick Flex would be the same length as an Explorer, there’s no reason that we couldn’t offer a small third-row seat in back for young families to use. However, the placement of the gas tank right behind the rear seat of the Maverick means that the seat might have to sit a little higher than the second row. To compensate, the add-on roof bumps up to create a cathedral-like space over the back.

Functionally, it just needs to go up a few inches. But why not push it and go taller for even greater bulky-stuff-swallowing ability? Yes, I know that a sliding/removable roof over the area like an Envoy XUV might also be an answer, but how often do you carry upright refrigerators? Never, not to mention that I want this thing to pass under a garage door without scratching the paint. To tie the look together, removable roof rails extending back from the windshield header might also create a cargo carrying space for models without a sunroof (or with an add-on mesh floor for models equipped with the sunroof). Why not add a Vista Cruiser-style skylight window on the raised front section of the rear roof section, too?

I can hear you now: “I really like the look of this thing, but it sure looks familiar.” Yes, it should, because I inadvertently ripped off a perennial Autopian favorite car: the Matra Simca Rancho. Many of our readers know and love this thing, but if not, I’ll give you the description from a post I did a few years back:

The Rancho could lay claim to being one of the first image-over-capabilities SUVs; it wasn’t even available with four-wheel-drive. If it looks at first like a Simca 1100 driving out of a greenhouse, that’s because it kind of is. The whole front section of this concoction is that old French compact, attached to the spacious, glass covered boxy rear cabin.

Matra was way ahead of its time in understanding that most people that were getting into things like Jeeps and Range Rovers would never go off road beyond putting a wheel onto the median now and then. It’s the look that matters, and things like hood mounted spotlights (that could only turn on with the car off), a mock push bar and rugged roof rack over the original Simca passenger compartment made this thing look like it was ready to drive the Darian Gap when in fact it was only capable of driving to The Gap, but if the snow wasn’t more than a few inches deep.

You could even get it with a rear facing seat (that shared headrests with the second row passengers) to carry a total of six passengers, though with 86 horsepower you had better hope that some of those people were pretty small. These things were supposedly popular in period as fashion items on the streets of Paris and London despite the limited overlanding abilities, a “bomber jacket” of a car.

Here’s the Maverick Flex again for comparison:

You Might Actually Really Like Sitting In The Third Row

The rear seat of the Maverick won’t challenge a long-wheelbase S-Class for space, but it’s still plenty of room for a family.

Unfortunately, one challenge of making a three-row Maverick is that the door openings on the standard truck are rather narrow. One answer would be to retool longer rear doors but somehow such an investment would not only be costly but likely result in an SUV that starts to look too much like a run-of-the-mill mom-and-the-kids SUV.

The answer would probably have to be a flip down and forward rear seat to create a gap to gain access to the third row. My Land Cruiser has this feature, and it’s somewhat clunky, but it still works as intended. You can see that the third row sits a little higher because of the Maverick’s gas tank location, but occupants will be surrounded by lots of glass (including that Vista Cruiser window) so it will be a rather pleasant place to sit.

Note also the power sliding rectangular openings in the rear quarter windows to allow for fresh air to the often stifled third-row occupants (they’ll have their own window switches back there as well as switches up front above the rear-view mirror). You can of course flip the third seat down, remove it, or order a Maverick Flex with no third-row seat at all if you choose.

Could This Put A Ford In Your Future?

Let me guess what you might be thinking: do we really need yet another Ford sport utility vehicle, especially one that’s the same size as their bread-and-butter Explorer? I say absolutely. The people I can think of that considered and even bought Mavericks wouldn’t have had any form of Explorer on their shopping list; a list that likely didn’t go up the $40,000 plus range needed to buy Ford’s mid-sized SUV anyway. This side-by-side comparison shows that they’re different as night and day:

No, even with the base price now having risen to just under $30,000 the Maverick still represents a great value, and if the Maverick Flex could hit the mid-thirties starting price target to bridge the difference between the Maverick pickup and the base Explorer, it might be an attractive proposition. Add in the third-row capability and Ford would possibly have the equivalent of legally printing money.

Come on, Ford! Most of the Matra Ranchos left are too rusty to import to America now anyway, so please give us Autopians the revival we all want to see.