The current Ford Maverick is an affordable small pickup, taking its name from the even more affordable compact sedan made for the 1970 through 1977 model years. The original Maverick was a hit with young people looking for their first cars, going toe-to-toe against rivals such as the Chevy Nova, AMC Hornet, and Plymouth Duster, and the brochure for the '71 Maverick shows some of those youngsters having outdoorsy beachside adventures with their cars.
There's a sleek-looking diver in a two-tone wetsuit straight out of Yellow Submarine… and what appears for all the world to be a roadie for Hawkwind smoking a pipe in a suspiciously cosmic-looking manner and showing off a tattoo boasting of the optional 250-cube six in his new ride. We have questions.
Sure, we see the pipe-smoking guy on another page, with a parrot and some rope placed on the Maverick's bench seat in a not-so-convincing attempt to pass him off as a Jack London-style sea captain. But anyone under 30 in 1971 would have known that just about zero young Americans were smoking pipe tobacco, any more than they were wearing fedoras or grooving to Glenn Miller on their 8-track players. Those things were for Buick Electra buyers in 1971! Perhaps recognizing the popularity of a certain top-ten hit that year, I think the creators of this brochure did a bit of wink-wink-nudge-nudge on the subject and created a brochure character who could be seen as either salty Cap'n Maverick or Stoney McDrymouth.
