The Maverick was a missed opportunity. It had a seductive and sporty profile, but looks can be deceiving. Under that cute mini skirt or hip-hugger pants there was something seriously missing: Sex.
The Maverick was supposedly created as a quick response to the booming growth of imports in the late ’60s, led by the venerable VW Beetle, the Opel Kadett and the rapidly expanding Japanese brands. Ford was already hard at work on the even smaller Pinto, which would arrive in 1971 and be more directly positioned against the smaller imports. The Maverick was really just a slightly downsized 1960 Falcon in stylish new duds, but the marketing positioning was clear: we can get you in a genuine Ford for the price of a VW or Toyota. But is that what buyers really wanted?
Lee Iacocca’s disdain for the dumpy, boxy and decidedly unsexy Falcon was well known at Ford headquarters. When he saw how the cute little Corvair Monza coupe with its bucket seats and floor shift was taking the country by storm, he got…excited. And so he fathered the iconic Mustang, which was of course a Falcon in stylish new duds and…bucket seats, floor shift and plenty of sexiness to go around.
Contrary to popular myth, close to half of the original Mustangs came with the six. It was targeted at secretaries, and other young single women. And they found great fulfillment in buying them by the hundreds of thousands. It was the thing to be seen in. As well as to enjoy sitting in.
What’s not to like, especially with an interior like this? Especially for $2,371.
This was the great lesson that Detroit had to learn the hard way from the imports: buyers would rather buy a smaller car trimmed nicely than a bigger car trimmed like a taxi cab. Even the lowly Beetle had a cheerful and high quality interior, with bucket seats, floor shift, and a colorful interior. Those items would all-too soon be recognized as the bare minimum.
But ironically, Lee Iacocca forgot the very lesson that had made him a superstar.
The Maverick arrived with a dreadfully dreary all-black taxi-cab interior and a bench seat. And a balky column-mounted shifter for the three-speed manual transmission. This one has been re-upholstered, but you get the point.
Here’s a picture of one that looks original, except of course for the aftermarket floor shifter. It was the thinnest of cheap black vinyl upholstery, and the rest of the cave was all in black too. All the sex appeal of a nun’s habit.
Bucket seats weren’t available at any price, never mind a floor shifter. And maybe a bit of color?
It’s even drabber than a base 1960 Falcon interior. Come on, Lee!
The Maverick should have come with at least the same bucket seats the Pinto was graced with. Not like anyone was ever going to be the third person sitting on the narrow front bench seat anyway. And of course a floor shift. Both would have been cheaper than the bench and the column shifter anyway. Makes no sense.
And while we’re at it, an improved steering gear to cut down on the ridiculous 5.2 turns lock-to-lock. Hey, it’s not 1960 anymore! You want import buyers, get serious!
The only possible reason I can see for all this was to protect Lee’s baby, the Mustang, which had been gorging on high-calorie oats and was showing the consequences, although that was just about to get worse in 1971. A base 1970 Mustang six was priced at $2721, but by this time folks weren’t really buying base Mustang sixes anymore. They’d moved up the food chain. And newly-minted young women were checking out nicely-trimmed Toyota Corollas. Or Celicas, starting in 1971.
Lee finally tumbled to the issue with a grab-bag of sporty stripes, fake hood scoops and…even bucket seats, in the Grabber package. But who wanted to pay for the stripes and scoops just to get what they should have gotten in the basic Maverick?
Ok, you’re going to say “Niedermeyer, you’re nuts (as usual); the Maverick was a huge hit!” Well, it was, for exactly one year, its first, and which was actually a year and a half. But sales fell of a cliff (in half) in 1971, and dropped further in 1972. The Maverick was a one-year wonder, and then fell back into the same dull marginal role the Falcon had occupied a few years earlier.
The painful reality was that Chrysler was building a better Maverick. The Duster was bigger, had a wide range of power train options, handled better, and was just more appealing. In 1971, the Mopar A-Bodies outsold the Maverick by just about two-to-one. Oh, and there was that wild 340 V8 and floor shifters too. Sure, the Duster essentially killed Chrysler’s pony cars, but they went on to make millions of A-Bodies, which dominated the compact sector. And they made essentially all of the profits at Chrysler during the 1970s, such as they were. Volume is everything in this business.
If Ford had made the Maverick the new Mustang six from the get-go, there’s no telling how big it could have been until the Mustang II came on the scene.
And seeing how the Maverick could have become the new Mustang, it would have made lots of sense to base the new Mustang II on the Maverick instead of the Pinto, with some proper proportions and bigger wheels, like we did here, when we built a better Mustang II. The MII needed some serious help in the sexiness department too. Maybe Lee’s testosterone levels had been drooping?
The Maverick had genuine potential, but Ford just didn’t quite see it, or get it. Either make a fun and sexy cheap car or don’t bother. Who wanted dull and boring in 1970?
It’s nice to know that someone still loves their original Maverick, given how many have been turned into…Mustangs.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: Ford Maverick – The Simple(ton) Machine by PN
Vintage Road & Track Road Test: 1970 Ford Maverick – “…They’ve Got To Be Out Of Their Minds” by PN
Curbside What If? CC Builds A Better Mustang II by PN
Vintage Car Life Review: 1965 Ford Mustang Six – The True Heart Of The Mustang’s Success by A. Severson
Your take on the Maverick was spot on! Mom got a one year-old dealer demo 1972 four-door Maverick to replace her 1961 Buick Special with the 215 aluminum V8 and a two-speed automatic tranny, and the then twelve (12) year-old Buick was still a better car in its dotage than the one-year old Maverick was in its prime! About the same room in the front seat, but with less room than the Buick in back, due to the narrow hips of the first-year for the four-door version, It was a tight fit for us kids riding in the back! The manual drum brakes were completely devoid of feel, grabby and almost impossible to modulate. The over boosted power recirculating ball power steering was completely devoid of feel, and it felt as if the entire front end was shot full of Novacaine! The vinyl bench seat was hot, slippery and sweaty in the summer, and Ford couldn’t even be bothered to give you a proper glove box until 1975! All you got was a little plastic shelf, where your registration kept falling onto the floor after sliding off of the shelf in a turn! The 250 I6, with its integral intake manifold cast into the head, inhaling through a one-barrel carburetor, had about as much power as one of my HO-scale slot cars, that is to say, none at all!
The competition from both GM (X-body, Nova, et al.) and the Chrysler A-bodies (Dart, Demon, Duster & Valiant) were far superior, although none of them could handle anywhere close to the Asian and European competition of the era. The primitive emission controls of the era didn’t help matters, as the Maverick in particular was imbued with the “lovely” run-on “Diesel engine” feature, LOL! That sucker seemed to run on for ten minutes after you shut the key off! Definitely NOT one of Ford’s better ideas! The Maverick was the automotive equivalent of twice-reheated pizza: It tasted like the cardboard box it originally came in! Re-heating the Falcon to make the Mustang may have been a hit, but using the parts for the third time around in the Maverick was a disaster! If there’s a saving grace, it is that many first generation Mustang parts bolt into the Maverick, so the surviving examples can be fitted with a wide variety of upgrades from wrecked Mustangs at the local junkyard for a relatively low cost, such as power disk brakes, a 302 (5.0L) V8 and suspension upgrades, all bolt-in items, in an attempt to make the car what it should have been in the first place, a lower cost successor to the original Mustang.
Very insightful. Some rustproofing, slightly quicker steering and a floor shift would have made it desirable.
But Iacocca wanted cheap to be depressing, with plaid seats and steamboat steering.
This green example has trim around the windows and the 14” wheels. They actually handled quite well.
The mantra was “upsell” and a Torino based Falcon was only a few more dollars a month.
Like the Pinto, the Maverick came across as a disposable car. Most basic transportation. When I think of ’70’s malaise, sadly it is near the top of the heap.
I never found the styling appealing, as I always associated it with cheapness. And like all other early ’70’s domestic Fords, they had a notorious reputation for rust. However it was the interior, that really sunk these for me. It fully exuded cost-cutting. The dash was unattractive, and inexpensive-appearing. Hard surfaces, and the small instrument pod, looked low budget. Seats reminded me, of the seats in my school bus. The improved seats of the LDO version, were rare. Lack of any side bolstering, killed any sporty pretensions. Both visually, and functionally. Back seat of the two-door, was dark and uninviting.
Lingering memory of cars like this, unfortunately tainted the opinion of many people, towards the domestic car makers. As the reputation of Japanese cars climbed rapidly. Wish I could speak more positively of these. But they represent some of the worst qualities, in domestic cars of the era.
Some of the later Mavericks sported Magnum 500-style wheels, fabric seat inserts, and half vinyl roofs. But they were still Mavericks.
The 250 six was not reliable, and a near dog. The 302 V8, made these impractical for economy. Just a sad car, all around.
LDO’s weren’t that rare. By 1974, they were 25 percent of the output.
Was it up to me, or was it up to Ford, to break my perception of the Maverick as a cheap, disposable car? I was open-minded, but the Mavericks I saw, re-enforced, my image of them as borderline sh*tboxes.
I certainly wasn’t going ferreting around, looking for the odd LDO.
I will defend the Maverick interiors – kind of. It’s not like the base Valiant/Dart/Duster interior was any better, also full of painted metal and thin vinyl. And over at Ford, almost everything had a drab, awful interior in 1969-70-71, even the more expensive Fairlane/Torino and even the Galaxie.
I am kind of amazed that you got through the entire piece without mentioning the car the Maverick was supposed to replace – the Falcon. It had been all new in 1966 but the Mustang had made it all but irrelevant. From what I can tell, it went from about 180k units in 1966 to 76k in 1967, 81k in 68 and 61k in 1969. Those were terrible numbers for a car in Falcon’s class.
Plymouth’s Valiant (ignoring the Barracuda) alone trounced the Falcon in sales every year from 1967-69. Given this, I think Iacocca surely figured out that a me-too Nova/Valiant wasn’t worth the effort, so the Falcon’s replacement would be better looking and cheaper, in an effort to undercut the competing compacts on price. And probably to cut manufacturing costs so they could make money on the car at lower volumes. But with the Pinto joining the stable (sorry) buyers looking for small/cute/cheap went for the Pinto and Maverick turned into a tool to upsell people into Torinos or Mustangs (or send everyone not a diehard Ford buyer into Chevy/Mopar showrooms.
I may be one of the few who had fairly extensive experience in a late Falcon. It (like the Valiant) was a mid-60’s design and was much more competitive as a car against the Valiant or Nova than the Maverick was (examples – it felt more substantial and gave buyers the glove box everyone expected in an American car). Ford’s early 70’s development is strange – the Torino came out feeling much larger and heavier than it had been and the Maverick came out feeling much lighter and cheaper than the Falcon had been. It was almost like Ford left a big hole in the Market that the Nova and the Chrysler A body happily filled.
I have to say that finding an early Maverick in this condition borders on the miraculous!
Looking at the pictures again, I am struck by the Maverick’s similarity in shape to Kaiser’s Henry J.
I can find some appeal with the two door’s fastback look, but to me, the 4 door model has to be one of the most depressing looking cars ever made. Especially in avacado green.
Plus the Pinto, despite being half heartedly put together and a death trap, was a move in the right direction with its’ modern ohc 2.3 and four on the floor instead of near post WW2 design.
That all-black taxi interior in picture 6 is not original. The 1970 models came with a plaid cloth. While not the lap of luxury, it was better than this.
My biggest peeve was the brakes. There were no disc brakes offered until 1974, and no power brakes until 1975. The only 4-lug discs were tooled for the Pinto, which they must have deemed too small for the Maverick. That wouldn’t have stopped them from putting them in V8 models, however, which used Mustang brakes. In ’74 all Mavericks were standardized to 5-lug, which paved the way for discs, finally.
I remember the Maverick ;
As cheap four doors they were popular and everywhere in the 1970’s & 1980’s .
I agree they could have used better visuals but they did their intended job pretty well .
The three speed automatic (? C4 ?) worked fine and make them much better drivers than the Falcons & Comets were with their 2 speed penalty slushboxes .
EDIT :
I almost forgot the awful seat belt / stater interlock in the 1974 models, what a royal P.I.A. .
-Nate
I had a 71 Maverick. Green with a black interior. Bought it as a winter car for $300 as most people that had a nice car but didn’t want to drive it in the metal cancer causing salted roads in Ohio. Mine didnt last the winter with multiple attempts of jumping piles of snow in the big Sears parking lot and the donut derby races slamming into light poles in the same parking lot. I had a case of Micky big mouth beers in the back seat and on one particularly freezing night, they all froze and exploded and for the rest of my ownership until it went to the crusher, that car smelled like beer.
The life of the Maverick can be divided into two distinct segments, both equally depressing. The first era, encompassing the 1970-73 models, were cheap replacements for the original Falcon. They suffered in comparison to the Pinto, which seemed more modern and better suited to its role as a bottom-of-the-line cheap commuter car (a Runabout, if you will), being more nimble with its rack and pinion steering, more economical with its four cylinder engine, and about as capable of hauling four passengers as the Maverick, though both suffered from atrocious space efficiency.
The Maverick’s second era started with the introduction of the LDO package in mid-year 1972, when even Ford must have realized that there was a real market for a high-trim small car. The LDO was an easy way to differentiate the Maverick from the Pinto and the introduction of the four-door Maverick made it a viable option for a small family. Similar to the Pinto, the body structure of the Maverick seemed to have been significantly strengthened and improved in the 1974-77 models, perhaps as a result of the introduction of tougher government safety standards and the 5 MPH bumpers. While losing its light weight, the Maverick became a nicer car for passengers, though still compromised by the space-inefficient 1960s body. Even so, the Dart/Valiant twins were much better suited to these tasks, and, starting in 1975, so were GM’s X-bodies, leaving the Maverick with a market niche consisting solely of budget-minded Ford fans.
Mavericks had a fatal flaw through 1975, at least. Vulnerability and tendency towards terminal rust, throughout the body. At least in regions, where they were winter driven, and road salt was applied.
The late sixties were a turbulant time for Ford. Although they were doing great in the international racing scene, they had little street cred in the states. That improved with the 1968 fastback intermediate coupe in NASCAR, as well as the introduction of some decent engines, and this all topped off with the (brief) hiring of former head of Pontiac Bunkie Knudson.
Then it all started to unravel, and I wonder if part of it was the new for 1968 Nova. That car was clearly a compact, even offering a big-block 396 engine for a few years. Ford management surely saw an opening for a Beetle-fighter and rushed to get a smaller compact ASAP to beat GM. Thus was born the Maverick into a chaotic small car world.
It came to market in a smaller (no big-block engine is going to fit into any Maverick) and cheaper guise, starting at $1995. But, man, that was one strippo car. IDK that all that many potential Beetle buyers cross-shopped a Maverick, but given the Ford’s stellar first year sales, it would seem some surely did.
And the old, stodgy (but bigger) Falcon continued alongside up to a certain point, as well. It’s easy to tell, too, because both the final compact Falcon and first Maverick had horn rings and ignition switches on the dash.
But, then, strangely, the Falcon name moved onto what was otherwise a 1970 Fairlane 2-door sedan. The Mavericks sold in that time frame lost their horn ring and the ignition switch moved to the locking column.
Of course, when the Pinto arrived for 1971 to do battle with the Vega, the Maverick moved up to becoming a contender with the ‘real’ compact Nova and Valiant, but now at a distinct size disadvantage.
And after one year, absence, Lincoln-Mercury revived the Comet nameplate for 1971 as a counterpart of the Maverick.
Still, it’s a bit weird then Ford didn’t shipped the 1966-70 Falcon tooling to Brazil where it could have taken a niche between the local Ford Corcel and the Galaxie against the Brazilian Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Opala instead of bringing the Maverick later.
Then, did the Maverick was all Iacocca’s idea or Bunkie Knudsen also add his pinch of salt as well?
We could wonder also what if Ford have revisited the idea of the Cardinal and updated it for the 1970s?
Yeah, the Knudson/Iacocca situation at Ford and how it might have impacted Maverick development is what I was getting at. Before he was cashiered, Bunkie’s influence at Ford is mostly known to be the 1970 ‘Bunkie Beak’ Thunderbird and Mercury Montego, 1971 Mustang, and Continental Mk IV.
Iacocca, OTOH, is credited with the Continental Mk III.
So, one would surmise the Maverick’s conception and focus was at least begun by Iacocca., But, shortly after, in came Knudson.
If not for Bunkie, one wonders about the Falcon/Maverick/Falcon/Pinto/Mustang II and how differently things might have transpired, primarily with the Mustang remaining on the Falcon/Maverick platform as opposed to shifting to the Pinto, which seems to have occurred after Bunkie and an Iacocca program.
It’s also worth noting that Knudson’s experience with compact cars was limited to the 1961-63 Tempest.
Forget the big blocks, the big missed opportunity from an enthusiast perspective would have been the 351 Cleveland’s that arrived at the same time as Mavericks hit showrooms. 340 Dusters? Pfft!
That’s the big thing that I think held Ford back from the performance spotlight that favored (and still favors) Chevrolet. Chevrolet seemed to be ready and willing to offer whatever the customer was willing to pay for; 396 Chevelle? Sure! 396 Camaro? Sure! 396 Nova! Yep, duh! Ford’s protectionist policy towards the Mustang always came at the cost of other models, the Falcon Maverick and even Torino(which was the logical recipient for the Boss 429 rather than the Mustang that wasn’t run in the racing series that engine was homologated for). Obviously the writing was on the wall by 1970 with muscle cars so the Maverick not being this killer performance machine with 351 Cleveland power might not have been a great seller, but it might have been a credible image booster. The 340 Dusters are case in point. If the best Chrysler ever offered on those in 70-71 was the 318 2bbl would they be as popular as they are now? Or would they be in the same niche of relative obscurity Mavericks occupy?
The inability to get anything bigger than a 302-2v in a Maverick definitely seems by design. Unlike Chrysler with the Duster, Ford saw the writing on the wall of a sporty compact coupe cannibalizing sales of their ponycar as early as 1966 when the Falcon went all stodgy from the previous years’ sporty Futura hardtop and convertible.
And, truth be told, they were probably correct. A cheap Cleveland-powered Maverick would likely have eaten into Mustang sales exactly the same way the Duster did, not only into E-body sales, but the B-body coupe, as well.
A shame because a 351C in a lighter Maverick would have been more of a dragstrip terror than the 340 Mopar.
Foreign intrigue indeed. I thought I had captured one in more contemporary times and did in the background.
What does it say that out of the four cars in that pic it’d be my fourth choice?
No hardtop model available, either. Another sign of the (ever-worsening) times.
At least with the trimmer bumpers it’s a relatively handsome design. By ’74 these were a rolling joke.
My experience of the Maverick was that of a little kid. A family friend had bought one and one day took the local kids out. Even though I was only like seven years old, I could see that the Maverick was totally cramped in the rear seat. The front wasn’t much better. That car started rusting as soon as the warranty was up. Fords of the era were not known for rust proofing.
This is CC Fan´s wife. My family bought a dark green Maverick almost as soon as they were available, and I inherited it a few years later after my college graduation. I wasn´t crazy about it but was happy to have a free car. Speed and a good heater were points in its favor; absolutely rotten visibility, a clunky feel, that widow´s weeds interior, and no FM radio were serious drawbacks. After two years, I bought a VW Beetle–much cuter!–and handed the Maverick off to my younger sister. She put in her two years and handed it off to our next sister. By then, the vinyl on the dash was splitting and the foam was poking out (a common problem with Mavericks), and a family of roaches had somehow taken up residence in it. While none of us were thrilled with the car, we referred to it as ¨Wonder Car” because it would not die.
We needed a second car in Hawaii in 1986, and found a 77 Maverick for $1600.
It was on its second paint job – beige – with a matching beige interior – yuck…but other than that it was clean.
Two memories; The interior was pitiful, lot’s of hard beige plastic. 2) I could never get the 250 six to run smooth – hard starting, stumbling, etc. After three mechanics tried and failed, I chalked it up to the emissions system and figured they all did that.
The Maverick is one of those cars where I think benefits from my millennial perspective; the mundane drivers were long extinct before my time and the coupe bodystyle looks sleek and in fact sexy to my eye, just like a 70 Torino Sportsroof without all the mass. When I was a kid looking through all my picture books like “Cars of the sensational 70s” I’d see the Maverick and wonder why Mustangs were so popular, the exterior styling was mostly a home run!
Obviously I’m now cynical and jaded so I understand, the interior plain sucks, the low spec 302 was the best these ever had to offer under the hood and what looks like a pretty hardtop roofline is really just a stylized sedan roofline with fixed rear glass and a B pillar. To a degree the Duster/Demon was a similarly sobering moment to me in finding out what they were to the general public of the time but there was just so much more substance to them that made my idealization of what they were mostly reality(the fixed rear windows being my only real peeve really).
That said I still think the Maverick coupe is good looking, the 66-70 Falcon was plain dumpy on the outside (although I have affection towards the 4-door sedans because of Australia’s impressive efforts) and if nothing else the Maverick brought style back to true economy Fords that had been missing since the hardtop Falcons of 65.
I have the same thoughts and the same book! Highly recommend it.
I think the Maverick in many ways was way better looking than the Mustang II.
It still amazes me that Ford management in America just didn’t get the point.
If somebody was looking at getting a compact, did they really think people were going to seriously consider an intermediate when they saw how basic the Maverick was? I’d be more inclined to think they’d write Ford off as a dead loss and go look elsewhere. Or were they counting on brand loyalty? Why?
The Maverick could have been so much better. They should have looked at what we’d done with the Falcon down under: better steering and suspension, good seats, and all the power and comfort options you could want. Put our 2V head and carb setup (the crossflow came later) on your 250 and you’d have usefully more power without little loss of economy, probably even with adjustment for emissions which weren’t an issue here yet.
The knowledge and parts were there, but Ford US just didn’t use them. Pathetic.