Review: The 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo Is The Pony Car Of Pickups
The newest version of the Ford Maverick is called the Lobo and it’s a lowboy.
The Maverick was refreshed for 2025 with a new front-end style and updated interior, plus the addition of this new street performance style Lobo model. Lobo, which is Spanish for “Wolf,” is a name that Ford’s been using on the F-150 in Mexico for years, and now it’s brought it to the U.S. for a new line of sporty trucks, both for the Maverick and the F-150. And there’s much more to it than just the name,
The Maverick Lobo has a starting price of $37,625. For that, you get the Maverick’s 2.0-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder rated at 250 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque, and standard all-wheel drive. But not the regular Maverick all-wheel drive. This one’s been updated with a twin-clutch rear-drive unit that it borrows from the Bronco Sport Badlands and Maverick Tremor Off-Road model, which actively shuffles the power from left to right so you can do torque vectoring to improve the handling and also essentially lock for added traction in a straight line. Power gets to it through a seven-speed automatic transmission, while the rest of the Mavericks have an eight-speed. I’ll get back to why they did that in a minute. It all drives a set of nifty 19-inch Turbofan style wheels, but Ford does offer a more conventional spoked wheel for an extra hundred bucks.
Other than the trim bits, the cabin is largely the same as the ones in other Mavericks and is pretty roomy for a compact truck, even in the back where it has a storage bin under the flip-up seat bottom. A new 13.2-inch touchscreen infotainment system replaces the old eight-inch screen and comes with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone integration.
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The Lobo’s suspension is lowered .5 inches in front and 1.1 inches in the rear, but the ride quality is excellent. It is neat and tidy on a winding road, but not too stiff, even when things get bumpy. The relatively low-profile tires all-purpose highway terrains, not performance rubber.
If there’s one box the Lobo didn’t check as a sport truck, that’s it. But I know that at least Michelin and Continental make summer performance tires that’ll fit on these wheels, if you want to amp things up. Even without them, it’s not short on grip for the road, but if you push it hard off off the street, it’s not too hard to find the grip limit. And you have to push it pretty hard if you want to find out what that rear-drive unit’s all about. It really doesn’t kick in unless you’re kicking the accelerator and cranking the steering wheel.
There is a Lobo drive mode setting that loosens up the stability control and makes the drivetrain work more aggressively, in case you happen to come across an autocross and it notes on the instrument cluster that it is only meant for track use.There is a Sport mode that’s more for the street that puts the transmission to work in a similar fashion with more stability intervention.
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About that transmission, the reason it has seven speeds is so that it isn’t quite as busy when you are driving this in a sporty fashion. Ford really did just take that eight-speed transmission and pull second gear out of it to turn third into second, fourth into third, and so on. The ratios are exactly the same. I found that second gear gets you up to around 44 miles an hour before you hit the redline, which means that on an autocross or even a small track, you’re really just going to be using second and third gear.
Lobo-exclusive shift paddles behind the steering wheel provide another level of control. I don’t expect that anyone will buy this with the primary intention of taking it to an autocross or a track, but if you want to hit one with it for a laugh now and then, it can totally handle it. Ford even gave it a quicker steering ratio than the other Mavericks, and it’s noticeable. It’s very responsive, and there is no slack in the wheel.
Along with the improved dynamics, the Lobo sounds more aggressive than other Mavericks. At least inside the cabin, where it is synthetically, but convincingly enhanced.
A loaded Lobo checks out just over $42,000 and includes an upgraded suite of electronic driver aids, which has a very good lane centering adaptive cruise control. It also gets Ford’s Pro Trailer Backup Assist, which lets you use the backup camera and a knob on the steering wheel to direct where you want the vehicle to go as it handles the steering, plus the Pro Trailer Hitch Assist, which will automatically steer it in reverse to line it up with the ball on a trailer. That trailer can be no more than a ton, unfortunately, thanks to the sporty setup.
Fuel economy comes in at 24 mpg combined, which is one mpg more than the high-riding Tremor and one mpg fewer than the other models with the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder. Even if some of them can tow twice as much as the Lobo, they definitely can’t haul like it does.