“Maverick” must surely be one of the most reused car names in history. Interestingly, what was once the name for Ford’s second-smallest passenger car in the North American market ended up being used on three different SUVs.
The featured Maverick is the only one Australia received. It’s a rebadged Y60-series Nissan Patrol, Nissan’s tough off-roader and chief rival to the Toyota LandCruiser. Later, Europeans were able to buy the smaller Nissan Terrano/Mistral with Ford Maverick badging, before the name was dusted off again a couple of years later for the European-market Ford Escape crossover.
Well, it was a good name, so why not use it again and again? Maybe it’s the fact I grew up with Maverick SUVs that I find the name so much better-suited to rugged off-roaders.
Like many transparent rebadge jobs, the Aussie Ford Maverick was conceived during the implementation of the Button Plan. This was the popular name for a government plan to consolidate the number of vehicles produced in Australia and strengthen the competitiveness of those products so tariffs could be reduced for imports. The Maverick was an outlier as, unlike many of the rebadged vehicles offered as a result of the plan, both it and the Patrol weren’t manufactured in Australia.
Visual changes from the Patrol were limited to badging. It was clearly a Patrol but most Maverick buyers didn’t care: the Patrol had a good reputation for reliability and durability and Ford dealerships were more commonplace in rural areas and more willing to offer fleet deals.
The Maverick replaced the locally-assembled Bronco in Ford showrooms and was later joined by the Raider. Speaking of reused names, how is it that “Raider” became so popular with rebadged trucks? The Aussie Raider was an SUV adaptation of the Mazda B-Series pickup, which meant Ford was selling both rebadged Mazdas and Nissans at the same time.
Nissan graciously afforded Ford a whole range of Patrols to sell as Mavericks: wagons with two or four doors, as well as a two-door ute and a two-door cab chassis derivative. Mavericks were sold in base, XL and XLT trims, with a choice of two engines: a 4.2 SOHC inline six with 167 hp and 239 ft-lbs, mated to a 5-speed manual or optional 4-speed automatic, and a 4.2 SOHC inline six diesel with a 5-speed manual and 113 hp and 194 ft-lbs. All that was missing was a luxury model like the flagship Patrol Ti, which came with leather seats and woodgrain trim.
This series of Patrol was given the series code ‘GQ’ down under, but this off-roader is as far-removed as the identically-named men’s fashion magazine as possible. For starters, while an issue of GQ typically has an immaculately groomed man in a tailored suit on its cover, the GQ Patrol and Maverick were some of the butchest, most rugged-looking 4WDs on the market, replete with flared wheel arches and a no-nonsense fascia. A LandCruiser looks like a handsome male model in comparison, while the Patrol/Maverick is a grizzled bushman with sunburned skin and a drover hat.
These trucks weren’t all hat and no cattle, either. Built on a separate chassis, the Patrol and Maverick used a three-link, coil sprung live axle suspension up front and a five-link, coil sprung set up out back. The ute models initially used leaf springs at the rear, as well as rear drum brakes; wagon variants were often equipped with disc brakes front and rear. Power was delivered to the wheels through a two-speed transfer box.
Eminently capable off-road, the Patrol and Maverick weren’t as good on it. Of course, that didn’t stop a lot of suburban families from choosing these (or the Holden Jackaroo, Toyota LandCruiser and Mitsubishi Pajero) as their family rides. All of these trucks could be equipped with seven seats, making them suitable for the school run. For adventuresome families, trucks like the Maverick and Patrol made sense: they could be driven along the beach on Fraser Island, they could tow the family boat, and they could take the kids to footy or cricket practice. And for people out in the bush that needed an off-roader for work, the Patrol and Maverick were excellent choices—outback Australia is powered by Japanese 4WDs.
While the “SUV” term has belatedly become popular here in Australia, it feels almost sacrilegious to apply it to these trucks. They’re 4WDs, off-roaders, 4x4s, tough bloody mudders. The Maverick was retired in 1994 and, after a few years, the Explorer was introduced to fill the big box-shaped hole in the Ford lineup. Nowhere near as capable off-road, nor as well-built, the Explorer never really engendered the same respect as the Maverick.
Of all the rebadged vehicles that appeared in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, the Maverick was one of the most memorable. It filled a void in Ford’s lineup. The Blue Oval was on the winning end of this model-sharing arrangement.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1988 Toyota Land Cruiser – Keeping The Faith
Nissan Patrol Pickup – History In The Dealership
CC Capsule: 1989 Mitsubishi Montero V6 – Rare Raider
Curbside Classic: 1992 Isuzu Trooper – Really Really Big Horn
And another one I had no idea existed. I thought the first SUV Maverick was the Terrano rebadge. No idea that there was a Patrol variant prior to that. Good looking truck, though, and a nice, full range.
That Mazda B-series SUV is a new one to me as well. I wonder why they never had it over here, seems like it would have been a good alternative to the early 4Runner/Trooper/Montero options Instead they eventually limited themselves to a rebadged 2door Explorer.
I had heard and seen the smaller Nissan-based SUV(on British TV shows and in British car magazines), but was not aware the name had been re-used on a slightly bigger SUV.
I remember reading a capsule review of the smaller Maverick in the British magazine CAR, it was not well thought of. But then, it would be about a decade before the magazine would take any of those type of vehicles seriously and actually do a full road test.
Maverick is a good name, though, so I can understand Ford “keeping it in the stable”.
It’s unfortunate that Mazda could not market that 4Runner type vehicle in the U. S., I wonder if that was Ford trying to off load 2 door Explorer, or Mazda not being able to see the SUV as a viable market niche?
Things were always a bit different down under, and these are no exception. I too didn’t know about the original patrol-based Maverick.
This Gen Of Nissan Patrol Had Been Built Down Here From 1983 Till 2003.On The Other Hand Mazda B2000 Is Still In Production Down Here.Great Cc.I Really Enjoyed it.Thanks.
I was thinking ‘Pajero’ when I saw the picture. Guess I wasn’t too far off the mark.
Maverick would have been a better name than either ‘Tribute’ or ‘Mariner’. (Or ‘Escape’, but Ford had the ‘E’ name thing for trucks going on at the time…)
Inn additin to ‘Maverick’,I wonder how many makes used the name ‘Raider’?
Between the ’80s and ’90s, the US first got a rebadged Mitsubishi Montero SUV as the Dodge Raider, then a Dodge Dakota-based Mitsubishi Raider pickup.
Happy Motoring, Mark
Seems to me it looks a lot like an XJ Cherokee.
They were pickup-based and Mazda had the rebadged Ranger in the US, Much bigger and more robust than an XJ – the wagon version has 3 rows of seats (optional) and weighs 1000lb more.
I knew about the Patrol and European Maverick, but not the Maverick on Patrol – thanks for letting me know. Love the term “Mudders” – it a very distributive and can only be used by a few vehicles.
Here’s a typical bush Maverick – belonged to my son’s friend. Many country boys seem to go through a 4WD stage before finally realizing they’re a bit rough for an everyday driver if they don’t regularly need that much off-road capability.
A friend of mine who moved down under years ago had a Maverick to go along with his Falcon.
The bug-eyed front end was not the only one on the Euro Maverick. First, it only differed from the Mistral (Terrano II) in badge, then both Maverick and Mistral got the bug-eyes, with the difference of the Ford having that area in chrome instead of body color. The Mistral ended up soldiering on until 2005, while the Maverick was gone by 2000
Oh, you’re right! I forgot both had the bug eyes for a while. Ironic because I literally photographed a bug-eyed Terrano II in my neighbourhood a few weeks ago. Did the Terrano do better in Europe? They were a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it offering here that I don’t think sold in any meaningful volume.
I just remembered the facelifted Maverick’s front being especially ugly compared to the Nissan. Forgot it was the chrome… I’ll amend the text.
The ugliness comes also from the grill area. Nissan pulled off a much better look with their corporate grill. Most Mavericks I see are the square-headlight 1993 ones. There was a time when I used to see Terrano II all the time, as off roaders had tax exemption in Portugal for quite a while. It and the Pajero were quite a bit popular. Around 2000/01, the Terrano II got yet another facelift, which solved the looks once for all. But as soon as the tax exemption was gone, sales dropped, and it died calmly around 2006.
I discovered now that it was designed by Ercole Spada!
Terranos are very common in NZ thanks to used ex JDM imports the Australian rebadged cars werent sold here and have become something of a joke but several models of Holdens we have here are unknown in OZ as they were GMNZ cars rebadged after arriving as Vauxhalls and several Fords here never appeared on the Aussie market.
These things were surprisingly ok to drive on-road, though the one I drove a lot was the non-turbo 4.2 pushrod diesel – maybe 100bhp for 2.5 unaerodynamic tons – so trips were, er, unrushed. That and the 4.2 pushrod petrol were ancient designs, but both were easily capable of 250,000+ miles. Four-wheel discs, a slick gearchange, really good seats and a fairly narrow cabin made them manageable as urban warriors. The coil springs and long wheelbase gave it a better ride than the contemporary Range Rover (though I never rode in a SWB Patrol/Maverick). They could also be had with the Nissan 3 litre OHC six (the VL motor) in carbuerettor form, but it was a revvy motor built for the Skyline. Lastly, there was turbo 2.8 diesel which was the one to be wary of, as they often seemed to pop.
Oddly, the cab-chassis versions continued with the awful leaf front springs for some years after the coil-sprung GQ was released. The previous Patrol (same body without wheel flares) was hideously bad, unsteerable, and rock hard, an absolute truck.
I reckon there’s about petrol 3 Patrol/Mavericks in Aus that AREN’T converted to run on LPG (liquid petroleum gas). LPG is about half the price of petrol in this country (where petrol itself is currently $5.60 AUD a US gallon); a 4.2 petrol automatic couldn’t exceed maybe 11 mpg in the real world, so without LPG, no-one could afford to run it!
Yes an important distinction this Patrol introduced was coil-sprung axles, whereas the 60-series Landcruiser still had leaves.
I drove a narrow-tyred Maverick like the one on the brochure cover above that the company I worked for had, it was 5-6 years old from memory and had 350k miles on it and apart from pumping black smoke from the exhaust when the throttle was to the floor (which was often) it drove perfectly.
In the end it broke down one day with senior management taking some visitors on a trip, and was towed to a small airport (little propeller planes only) on a rope behind the managing director’s BMW 7-series where some of the group flew on to the next destination. It was then sold as-is, where-is, and I remember seeing the purchaser handed the keys and asking the fleet manager where it was parked; to be told that it was still at the airport 25 miles away! He wasn’t too upset given the price paid.
I, too, wish Mazda had sold the B-series-based SUV here. It was sold as the Mazda Proceed Marvie in Japan.
Given the space for an unnecessary extra vehicle, I’d love to import one, now that they’re over 25 years old.
“I find the [Maverick] name so much better-suited to rugged off-roaders” – my thoughts exactly, Will!