2023 Honda Ridgeline vs 2022 Ford Maverick

Ford pickup trucks are Canada’s best-sellers, 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 efficiency with a standard hybrid powertrain.

The all-new 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.

Trucks are the most popular vehicles in North America. We buy them for work, for play, and, let’s be honest, for posing. We slam them down, we jack them up, and we make them loud and imposing. We brag about them, too: how much power they make, how much weight they tow, how far they go off-road, and how reliable they are. Trucks are our pride, our joy, and for some people, our substitution for therapy.

The 2023 Honda Ridgeline is one of several midsize trucks you can buy, but it bucks convention, making it an outlier. For people who need a truck to tackle modest tasks and don’t want to live with the compromises inherent in a traditional pickup, the 2023 Ridgeline is perfect. Just don’t expect to fit in with the crowd described above.