The Miata of trucks? Driving Good-Win Racing’s Ford Maverick

What’s a Maverick?

Ford builds a Maverick again, but it’s no longer a muscle car. Instead, it’s now a compact unibody pickup truck based on a FWD platform.

Boring, right?

Try again.

Its truck outline hides enthusiast underpinnings that are shockingly great on paper. Sure, the front-wheel-drive hybrid model is slow and features a mediocre rear suspension, but there’s an available turbocharged, 2.0-liter four-cylinder factory rated at 250 horsepower paired with a multi-link rear suspension and all-wheel drive.

[One week with a 2024 Ford Maverick Lariat Tremor]

Curb weight is around 3700 pounds, and towing capacity is as high as 4000 pounds, which means pulling a small car on an open trailer is in its wheelhouse. Pricing is reasonable: A base price under $20,000 at launch has now ballooned to nearly $30,000, but adding the turbocharged engine and all-wheel drive only moves that price $125 higher. So sure, the Maverick is an inexpensive, small truck first. But it’s a performance bargain second.

Good-Win’s Maverick

Which is why so many shops with nothing to do with the mini truck scene–shops like Good-Win Racing–suddenly find themselves building Mavericks.

This Miata shop also has a small truck addiction, which is why you’ll also find parts for Honda’s Ridgeline and Rivian’s R1T buried in its catalog. Shop owner Brian Goodwin calls the Maverick “the Miata of trucks,” which is probably why he ordered this 2022 Lariat and waited eight months for it to arrive.

Before the odometer hit 50 miles, the shop’s crew had cut off its factory exhaust. A month later, the truck was lowered.

Good-Win Racing's Ford Maverick before lowering springs were fitted (top) and after (bottom)

Then, Maverick parts started hitting the shop’s catalog, including a stiffer rear anti-roll bar, lowering springs, wheels and more. Three months into ownership, and Good-Win’s Maverick looked like a modern reinterpretation of the mini truck craze, though with a performance slant.

By the end of that first summer, though, it was time to move the Maverick in the other direction: up.

Good-Win worked with Progress to design its own lift springs, ordered some meaty 235/65R17 Falken all-terrains (29s for the off-roaders in the crowd), and lifted its Maverick. When we got off the plane, it looked like a teeny tiny Baja truck–though that impression could have been influenced by the San Diego desert surrounding it.

“Trust me,” said Brian, “it’s way more fun in the twisties than it looks.”

So we hopped in, caravanning with the Fiat out to the twisty canyon roads we’d be spending the day on. Around town or cruising down the highway, Good-Win’s truck drives like, well, a Maverick–albeit one with a bit more bump travel and big, cushy tires to soak up imperfections. We’d call it a cushier upgrade to a familiar formula–and we pitied the poor souls ahead of us driving the lowered sports car out of town.

Then we finally hit the curves and started laughing maniacally. The all-terrains aren’t going to win any skidpad challenges, so instead they lean over on their sidewalls and howl with glee as you drive the Maverick off its nose.

It’s not a tail-happy monster by any stretch of the imagination, but the all-wheel drive and bigger rear bar mean it’s not an understeering pig, either. It’s a blast, especially when you hit reflectors or potholes or anything else and the truck shrugs it off without even noticing.

It’s even fairly quick in a straight line, which makes sense when you compare its power-to-weight ratio against something like a S197 Mustang, then add in the Maverick’s flat torque curve and the snappy eight-speed automatic.

Then, we saw a big, beautiful rock. And in a lifted truck, you can’t drive past a perfectly good rock without crawling up it.

We won’t say the Maverick has tons of articulation–it doesn’t–but it does have pretty capable factory traction control that helped it scrabble right up the rock for a photo opp. Even at full compression and full droop, we didn’t spot any stressed brake lines or weird clunks–an admittedly low bar, but one many lifted trucks still can’t clear.

So, why does this thing exist? Because it’s fairly easy to build, looks cool and surprises much more capable machinery while being a ton of fun. Maybe “the Miata of trucks” isn’t such a bad description, after all.

What's Good-Win's Next Truck?

Good question, and one Ford made very easy to answer: How about a Maverick Lobo?

The new-for-2025 factory package sports a lower, stiffer suspension, better cooling, bigger brakes, a new transmission and a real torque-vectoring rear differential. There's even a drive mode aimed at autocrossing.

Naturally, Good-Win has already bought one and started modifying it. "We're working on a bigger brake kit and race springs, do you want to drive it when we're done?"

That's another easy question to answer: "Absolutely!"