Forget Ford’s New Hybrid Truck, Who Remembers the Original Maverick?

On social media especially, you've probably seen ads for Ford's new hybrid truck, called the Maverick.

My parents had one of the original Mavericks in the 70's.

Unlike any other vehicle manufacturer that we can recall, Ford has revived an old model name, but it's nothing like the original.

When Volkswagen brought back the Beetle or classic Bug, it at least looked like the original. Remember Herbie the Love Bug? The newer one was pretty close.

But now, Ford has given the Maverick name to its new hybrid truck. According to Car and Driver Magazine, the new Maverick is a direct market competitor to the Hyundai Santa Cruz.  The new Maverick truck comes with an available electric motor, and Car and Driver spells out all its features. This is the new truck.

But the original Maverick was a muscle car...sort of.  Born in 1969, the two-door car was designed to combat growing numbers of import vehicles, including Japanese models, that were coming into the U.S.  It was also designed to deal with the early 1970's Middle East oil embargo that skyrocketed gas prices, kind of like what we're seeing now.

It was intended as an alternative for the more costly to operate (gas) Mustangs, and to compete with the Chevy Novas and Dodge Darts.

The original Maverick could be bought with four different engine packages, my parents bought a used one that had the max 302 cubic inch V-8 Windsor engine. It was bright yellow and had a block pattern racing stripe down the side.  Between later 1969 and 1977, 2.1 million of them were built.

   I did get to drive it for a while...until it got wrecked.

I got to use it when I first got my license, for maybe a year or two. But unfortunately, it was totaled when my Mom was driving back from a visit to Spokane to see my sisters in college.  Luckily, she was not seriously hurt. But she never did learn to 'tame' the power of the 302, and it ended up as a wadded chunk of steel alongside Highway 395 south of Ritzville. I will say that car had a serious throttle response.

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But luckily, following that, I got to drive a Pontiac LeMans which was the poor man's Chevelle. It came with a small bock 350 V-8, and I ended up liking it better.

But seeing these ads for the new Ford Maverick (truck) jostled my memory of a would-be muscle car that most people have forgotten.