2022 Ford Maverick

With the size and price of mid- and full-size trucks regularly increasing, simply being an affordable compact pickup truck was enough for the 2022 Ford Maverick to be a contender for Cars.com’s Best of the Year award for 2022. But with mind-blowing value, real capability and innovative accessorizing, the Maverick goes well beyond simply filling an unoccupied slot.

Average new-car prices are hovering in the $40,000 range, which makes the Maverick’s roughly $20,000 MSRP so low you could mistake it for a typo. Base propulsion comes from a 191-horsepower hybrid powertrain good for an EPA-estimated 37 mpg combined, meaning the Maverick isn’t just the most efficient pickup truck, it’s also the most affordable full hybrid on the market — period.

Affordable doesn’t mean boring, as with previous occupiers of the affordable truck mantle. The interior makes hard plastic materials look interesting with various textures, and it showcases exposed bolt heads and a fun color palette. Adding to its appeal are multimedia and climate controls that are normal, and mechanical buttons instead of the touch-sensitive panels that have caught our ire in other new and redesigned cars and trucks.

You won’t mistake the Maverick for anything other than a pickup truck. True, it’s based on carlike front-wheel-drive unibody architecture versus a traditional body-on-frame truck, but with a maximum 1,500-pound payload and up to 4,000 pounds of towing, the Maverick is plenty usable as a pickup and offers available all-wheel drive as well as a more powerful 250-hp, turbocharged 2.0-liter gas-only four-cylinder. In our initial experiences towing and hauling with payload, both powertrains proved compelling options.

The bed is home to endless possibilities for do-it-yourselfers thanks to built-in slots for two-by-four or two-by-six lumber that can section off parts of the bed or form the beginning of a custom carrier or mount. There are also prewired 12-volt access points that provide hookups for DIY projects including LED bed lighting. A backseat storage system called Ford Integrated Tether System includes slots that can mount Ford accessories including a cupholder, trash can or grocery bag hook, and Ford is working to provide the 3D printer geometry of these slots so owners can create their own accessories to fit into them.

Not merely an affordable truck option, the Maverick is an exceptionally thoughtful, broadly appealing model that is significant enough among 2022’s new models that — for the second year in a row — we’ve named a pickup truck Cars.com’s Best of the Year.