Ford asked execs to return their leased Mavericks so dealers could sell them.
How popular is the new Ford Maverick? It has only been on sale for a bit, but Ford sold 13,258 examples of its affordable bite-sized pickup last year. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the 100,000 reservations it had received by last August, and it doesn’t appear as if demand is letting up. Ford informed dealers this week that it would temporarily close the Maverick’s order books so it could fulfill backlogged orders.
“There’s been overwhelming demand for Maverick – both hybrid and EcoBoost,” said Ford spokesperson Mike Levine in a statement to The Detroit News. “We’re making the decision to stop taking new retail orders on the 2022 Ford Maverick starting after January 27 to focus on existing orders.”
Gallery: 2022 Ford Maverick: Review
Ford will reopen the order books sometime this summer when it will begin taking orders for the 2023 model. The Maverick, which starts at around $20,000, is compelling for its price point and functionality, earning the North American Truck of the Year award earlier this month, beating out the Hyundai Santa Cruz and all-electric Rivian R1T.
“We didn’t want to take more orders than we could build,” Dean Stoneley, Ford’s general manager of trucks, told the Wall Street Journal. This isn’t the truck’s first order pause. In September, Ford stopped accepting orders for the hybrid model. The new pause includes both variants, according to the Detroit Free Press.The publication also reports that the demand has been so high that Ford had asked executives with leased Mavericks to return them so that dealers could sell them to customers.
News that Ford would stop taking orders for the truck come just weeks after the automaker confirmed certain Maverick trims – the XLT and Lariat – would see minor price increases. The entry-level model was unchanged. Ford also had to issue a stop-sale late last month for a seat belt issue affecting a small number of models. The ongoing chip crisis continues to affect automakers big and small, including Ford.
Keyword: Ford Can't Take Any More Maverick Orders, Will Resume This Summer