In America, the love for unibody pickup trucks is a three-way affair where only one of the protagonists is clearly a sweetheart for most customers. That would be the compact and standard-electrified Ford Maverick, rather than the similarly sized, posher Hyundai Santa Cruz or the larger Honda Ridgeline mid-size model, of course.
When you think about it, Hyundai's corner office head honchos are probably crying aloud their outrage at the thought that, if they approved the concept model with the same name presented at the 2015 North American International Auto Show, then Santa Cruz could have dominated sales alone for a while before Ford reinvented the Maverick nameplate into a Mexico-produced four-door, five-passenger, compact crew cab pickup truck for the 2022 model year. Alas, there is no time machine to go back, so they have to accept that their Alabama-made Santa Cruz is no match for the more formidable Blue Oval competitor.
And perhaps it does not even need to be. What if their sister company Kia also introduced a four-door compact unibody pickup truck to come to their aid? Well, given the lackluster sales of the Santa Cruz compared to the Maverick, that's hardly a logical assumption – especially since there are numerous rumors that even Toyota will join the sector with a feisty revival of the Stout nameplate. But across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, nothing is impossible – including bringing to life a compact, unibody Kia pickup truck after stealing the DNA of the Ford Maverick and imprinting it with the styling ethos of one of Kia's most popular SUVs.
So, here it is, a digital project that probably will never see the light of day, unfortunately. Dimas Ramadhan, the virtual automotive artist behind the Digimods DESIGN channel on YouTube, has taken up the task of revealing the non-existent Kia 'Ute' - in CGI, and based on the Ford Maverick's rugged styling overlayed with lots of cool design cues from the successful Kia Telluride mid-size crossover SUV. The profile is definitely part of the Ford truck styling series, but the design also works surprisingly well with the front and rear borrowed from the Telluride (especially the grille, head-, and taillights) and only modified to accommodate the smaller overall dimensions and the rugged unibody pickup truck atmosphere.
In the end, there can be only one, and for the time being, the Ford Maverick indeed reigns supreme. As a reminder, the Blue Oval company manufactures the pickup sibling of the Bronco Sport and Escape CUVs in Hermosillo, Mexico, and sells the 2023 model year with a standard 2.5-liter hybrid engine or the 2.0-liter EcoBoost turbo mill in XL ($22,595), XLT ($24,855), or Lariat ($28,355 or $30,575) trims. So, which one would you choose – this or the hypothetical Kia Telluride 'Ute?'
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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