This Guy Bought the World’s Most Hated Ford Maverick. Here’s How That’s Going

“You just bought a sh*tbox,” one person quipped at Vincent Bertucci. “I wouldn’t even want that if it was gifted to me,” another commenter grumbled. Nothing like a warm welcome after joining a Facebook car group, right?

Bertucci is the new owner of a highly modified Ford Maverick. It has a tuned 2.3-liter EcoBoost from a Lincoln Corsair, a 57-millimeter turbo from a Ranger, and Focus RS brakes. In a former life, it was the test mule for a company called Fast Mavericks where it became an immediately recognizable object of hatred for torched customers. That business no longer exists and its founder has all but fallen off the face of the Earth, though the truck lives on.

“The dealer only told me that they got it from a vehicle auction and what they knew is what they saw in your [site’s] article,” Bertucci told me. He’s talking about The Drive‘s investigative report from August 2024 where we spoke with Fast Mavericks customers, several of which had a lot of ill will toward Ivan Gonzalez, the man behind it all. He was one of the first tuners developing performance parts for the new Maverick platform; he’s also the one accused of screwing more than a few people out of thousands of dollars.

That story is a messy one; check out our article from last year if you want to dig into the details. What’s important to know is that Gonzalez is blamed for taking customers’ money and never delivering parts. Our most recent correspondence with Gonzalez involved him saying he’d removed Fast Mavericks’ online storefront, which we confirmed, while he insisted he was catching up on orders as well as refunding certain customers whose names he didn’t mention. He’s been almost silent online ever since, which is why so many people have so much hate for the guy.

The listing for his former truck first popped up in November from what I can tell. It was shared to the Fast Mavericks Facebook group and from there the dogpile began. Marked with a $32,900 asking price, several people groaned that it was way overpriced while others pointed out you couldn’t build it for less. One commenter claims they tried buying it for a higher price a few months back but they were “scammed… for $6k on it.”

Others speculated that since the matte grey ride was for sale at Autoworld of Winston-Salem in North Carolina, Gonzalez must have moved across the country from California. Whether or not that’s the case, the Maverick is now in new hands.

“I bought the car even knowing the drama,” Bertucci said. “It was too cool of a build to pass up.”

Before it was hated, this truck was one of the hottest in the Maverick community. Some owners like Adam Edwards and Kenneth McCay were turning theirs into mini trucks, capturing eyeballs at SEMA and snagging magazine features at every turn, and Gonzalez’s build was like the go-fast hero. It was running 12-second quarter miles while a lot of folks were still waiting for their Maverick to be delivered. This made it famous and in a hurry as people couldn’t wait to get their hands on a compact street truck of their own.

Bertucci says most of the mods are holding up well, for what it’s worth. He had it up on a hoist recently to inspect the suspension parts and he said it all looks good in addition to driving just fine. The front brake lines running to the calipers were rubbing after being “loosely zip-tied to the strut brace,” so that was questionable, and there’s “a bit of a gap” above the digital gauge cluster that was swapped in from a Ford Escape.

His plan going forward is to find a quieter exhaust and check out different wheel options. I’m sure it’s plenty quick as-is, and Bertucci seems to be having a great time with it. He explained that he hasn’t really received any hate aside from the guys still ticked at Gonzalez, and so far, he’s been sharing details about how some of the truck’s custom parts are installed.

There’s time yet for Bertucci’s truck to turn from a heel to a face of the modded Maverick community again. It’s clear that right now, though, people who know about it still get a bad taste in their mouths whenever they see it posted.

Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com

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