2021 Ford F-250 Super Duty vs 2022 Ford Maverick

Ford F-Series trucks are America's best-selling vehicles. The Blue Oval builds and sells more trucks than some companies' entire annual sales runs, and as a result, it offers several configurations for the pickup. There's the F-150 full-size truck, which is considered a light-duty pickup, but we're here to talk about the Super Duty trucks, which include the F-250, F-350, and F-450.

Super Duty models are targeted at buyers that need and want hardcore capability in a pickup truck. The Super Duty trucks are offered in several trims: XL, XLT, Lariat, King Ranch, Platinum, and Limited. Cab configurations include regular cab, crew cab, and super cab. The Ford F-250 Super Duty is available in single-rear-wheel setup only. The F-350 is available in either single-rear-wheel or dual-rear-wheel setups, while the F-450 is dual-rear-wheel only.

Ford's Super Duty line competes with heavy-duty trucks from Ram, GMC, and Chevy. Nissan dropped the medium-duty Titan XD from its lineup after the 2019 model year and Toyota does not offer a heavy-duty version of its Tundra.

Americans buy more Ford pickup trucks than they do any other vehicle, but that doesn’t mean the Blue Oval is satisfied. The 2022 Ford Maverick aims to further expand the market by offering a more approachable version of the pickup. The Maverick is the smallest Ford truck in over a decade, uses car-like unibody construction for greater refinement, and emphasizes fuel economy with an available hybrid powertrain.

The Maverick’s closest rivals are the 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz and the Honda Ridgeline, other unibody pickups of similar size. But while the new Santa Cruz was conceived more as an SUV with a bed, the Maverick is more like a conventional pickup, just smaller than Ford’s other offerings.

The Maverick slots just below the Ford Ranger in size, although it’s still a bit larger than the compact pickups of old. With the demise of the EcoSport crossover, the Maverick is also now Ford’s de facto entry-level vehicle, which seems fitting for a company whose bestselling product is the F-150. Ford isn’t really a car company; it’s a truck company.

While the Ford F-150 is available in a dizzying array of configurations, the automaker kept things simple with the 2022 Maverick. The new Ford pickup is available in just three trim levels—XL, XLT, and Lariat—with a single bed length and cab configuration. At Ford’s invitation, we sampled the full lineup over two days on the roads around Nashville, Tennessee.