2022 Ford Maverick vs 2023 Chevrolet Colorado

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.

With the new 2023 Colorado, Chevy focuses on what people typically want in a truck. That’s why it comes only in a crew-cab, short-bed configuration, and most of the trim levels are off-road-oriented. A turbocharged four-cylinder powertrain supplies plenty of power, and even the base Work Truck trim level has modern instrumentation, infotainment, connectivity, and safety technologies. Robustly engineered, the new Colorado also supplies impressive payload and towing capacities, at 1,684 and 7,700 pounds, respectively. Good looks round out an impressive overall package.

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