Ford Motor Co’s. new little truck, the Maverick, is producing lots of early interest, with reservations for the hybrid pickup topping 100,000 and demand coming from California markets that commonly favor imports.
The reservations are nonbinding and don’t need a deposit, yet Ford is sure they’ll change over into orders as they did with a comparable system set up to assemble interest for the electric Mustang Mach-E and revived Bronco SUV.
“This really has exceeded our expectations,” Todd Eckert, Ford’s truck marketing manager, said in an interview. “This is the initial step with reservations. But we think it bodes extremely well.”
Ford is making a bid for entry level import purchasers with the Maverick, what begins at under $20,000 and gets 40 miles for each gallon with the standard gasoline-electric hybrid version. The compact pickup is just six inches longer than a Toyota Camry car. It represents a new effort to arrive at cost cognizant buyers after the automaker dropped the Ford Focus and left slow selling vehicles in the U.S.
Up until now, Ford says the most reservations are coming from Los Angeles, where the Toyota Tacoma moderate size pickup dominates the market. San Francisco ranks third on the Maverick reservation list, behind Orlando, Florida, and only in front of Houston.
The vehicle, which is being built in Mexico, authoritatively on sale this fall.
Michael Meadors, 30, of Costa Mesa, California, has effectively changed over his reservation into an order for a black Maverick with a sticker cost of $22,030, after he added some safety-oriented technology upgrades. With an almost 50-mile round-trip commute to his HR job in L.A., Meadors said he was attracted by the truck’s fuel economy and modest size.
“It’s not that much bigger than the Ford Fusion I’m driving,” Meadors said. “So it should be pretty easy to buzz around in heavy traffic in Southern California and find parking.”
This is Meadors’ first truck and first new vehicle. Like the developing wave of pickup purchasers, he needn’t bother with a truck for work, yet sees benefits in having a bed to pull things.
“You don’t have to work in construction in order to reap the benefits,” he said. “You could be picking up plants and potting soil, or some large items from Costco or even sandy beach chairs that you don’t want to put inside the cabin.”
