Ford Maverick: A Brazilian Rock Star Playing Two Encores

Scan the Internet for comments about the current Ford Maverick truck, and you’ll find negative sentiment from Maverick purists in a matter of minutes. For some, a truck with a tiny bed and the same underpinnings as an Escape crossover is certainly cause for alarm, but the original American Maverick was more of an average joe in a sea of famous performance brand names.

I wager the commitment of the most ardent Maverick fan in America can’t hold a candle to the passion this vehicle evokes in other countries, and one in particular—the Ford Maverick was a rock star in Brazil. Put another way, what if the pure-ist of the purists live in Brazil, and not in these United States of America?

The original Maverick (1970–77) was based on the Falcon and Mustang hardware that preceded it, and its intention was to lure buyers who were seeking affordable and durable transport away from imports. As the Malaise Era forever altered our automotive landscape, the Maverick morphed into a muscle car.

But its story in Brazil was that of a rock star visiting Ford showrooms at the most opportune moment. Or perhaps the arrival of the Maverick was like that of a helicopter landing on a racetrack, ready to steal the hearts and minds of motorsport enthusiasts in a far away country.

First, a little backstory. While America was feeling the depression of living in that Era of Malaise, Brazil was living large. (Not all citizens benefitted from those good times, more on that later.)

Ford of Brazil was ready to pounce on the opportunities available in a healthy economy, having deep ties in Brazil for decades. It started with the Model T, forged a controversial history of failed urban planning, and honed passenger-car production in the 1960s by absorbing Willys-Overland’s substantial Brazilian footprint. This is how Ford built the foundation for the Maverick’s profitable fanbase.

That acquisition from Willys-Overland included the (Renault-infused) tooling to create what would become the compact Ford Corcel. But Ford was looking skyward, adding the Galaxie/LTD sedan in 1967 to become its Brazilian flagship. It was based on the 1966 Ford Galaxie, utilized Ford’s Y-block V-8 engine, and sported a lofty price tag.

While VW had a strong presence in Brazil, its air-cooled offerings couldn’t touch Ford’s “Quieter Than a Rolls” Galaxie full-sizer. As advertisements of the early 1970s suggested, Ford needed a middle ground for buyers who could afford something better than a Corcel but not as prestigious as the Galaxie/LTD.

Enter the mid-sized Brazilian Maverick for 1973. In light of the Mustang’s success in North America, and the Capri success in Europe just a few years earlier, the Brazilian Maverick’s path to supremacy was seemingly set in stone. That optimism stems from the Brazilian Miracle in 1969, which possessed the markers of long-term prosperity. With such prosperity came ample reason for well-heeled members of Brazilian society to overlook the downsides present at the same time.

Brazil was ripe for becoming the Pony Car’s hat-trick, as the made in São Paulo 1973 Maverick was the 1965 Mustang incarnate, right down to performance upgrades (5.0-liter V-8, imported from America), and upscale trim levels (“Super Luxo, in Brazil”). Covering all the sports coupe demographics was the right move, as the Maverick seemingly lured the Brazilian equivalents of the muscle car and personal luxury fans to a single vehicle. The Maverick had a heady V-8 unavailable in GM’s Chevrolet Opala mid-sizer and fastback, muscle car styling unavailable in A-body Dart, despite its 318-cubic-inch V-8.

The cast was set, and the Maverick also dominated many forms of Brazilian motorsport. Unfortunately the Energy Crisis of 1973 had different plans for the Maverick’s long term prospects. The high price and low availability of fuel meant Ford was forced to quickly dump the antiquated Willys Hurricane inline-six that was standard equipment in the Brazilian Maverick. In its place came Ford’s 2.3-liter SOHC four-cyIinder mill, which was likely needed for the Maverick to appeal to an audience that contained an increasingly smaller number of pony car buyers.

Ford still sold the 5.0-liter-powered Maverick, but things were going to get even worse for the Brazilian pony car. Not to get all Harvard Business case-study on you, but the Maverick’s fate was likely sealed after a crushing amount of foreign debt (92 billion dollars), hyperinflation, and a recession hammered the country after the Brazilian Miracle. While the crisis was averted and Brazil both survived and thrived, Ford sold only 108,106 Mavericks from 1973 to ’79.

Ford’s high performance future in South America was also in doubt, as a weakened South American economy forced an alliance between Ford and Volkswagen. The new, Germanic-infused organization was called AutoLatina, and its offerings focused on mundane family cars that had none of the Maverick’s muscular swagger.

Badge engineering between Ford and VW continued until 1995, when AutoLatina outlived its usefulness to both parties. Today the current Mustang curries favor in Brazil, and the Mustang-Falcon–based Maverick is all but a distant memory from a truly complicated time in Brazilian history.

But that didn’t stop Maverick loyalists from trying to reboot the brand in the 1980s. Ford itself suggests that Brazilian Mavericks are objects of worship, and that might not be PR hyperbole.

What we see in the video above is a Maverick-derived creation from Decorauto Produções, a company with intentions similar to those of ASC in America. Modernized with styling for the early 1980s, this re-imagined Brazilian Pony Car deserved a new name: Centauro, or centaur in English.

Like the half horse, half man that inspired it, the 1981 Centauro was a conversion for the two-door Maverick, modernizing it in the same vein as the next generation of performance cars sold elsewhere. There was a unique front end with a long snout, sporting hints of the 1979 Firebird in the front bumper. The Ford Falcon XC coupe was heavily cribbed from the B-pillar back, necessitating swoopy fiberglass covers for the doors that overlapped with the side windows.

The only Maverick telltales are the chrome door handles (seen on early Centauros) and the Ford sheetmetal around the windshield. The radically altered coachwork was done by Carlos Alberto Corrêa, who appears to be an engineer at Decorauto Produções. Corrêa suggested the Centauro came to life because of a need “to create a model with a V8 engine, above the competitors with four and six cylinder [engines].”

Corrêa and the team at Decorauto Produções started Centauro production sometime around 1981— little information is available outside of what was published in the September 1981 issue of Motor 3 Magazine. Standard equipment started with everything you’d find in a V-8 Maverick, while aftermarket prerequisites like sportier side view mirrors, alloy wheels, and an upgraded audio system rounded out the package.

The Centauro’s interior looks significantly more upscale than the already plush trappings of a Brazilian Maverick “Super Luxo,” with a heavily modified dashboard that shares a steering wheel and gauge pod with the Ford donor car. Later iterations used a more unique set of gauges, a different steering wheel, and a heavily revised dashboard. Details are sparse on the extent of the Centauro’s running changes.

It’s been reported that only 50 Centauros were sold, including those with significant exterior changes (a Dodge Mirada–worthy grille, revised fiberglass quarter-panels, etc.) before Decorauto Produções shut down the party. But while one company gave up the fight to produce at scale, another took the Brazilian Ford Maverick to shockingly decadent heights for a singular client.

Again we look to the September 1981 issue of Motor 3 magazine, the gift that keeps on giving for Maverick fans. Its photography proves the Brazilian Ford Maverick embodies the spirit of customization that was everywhere in the Malaise era. The Centauro’s profile was unique in South America, but it’s downright conventional when paired with the American Ford Pinto Stiletto.

The other side of the customization coin was the extra chrome and angular body panels fitted to Superfly customs of the same era. It likely was the justification to make a neoclassic-inspired Maverick, and the 1980 Cadillac Seville likely motivated one person to open their checkbook to make it happen.

Called the Caderick, this Ford Maverick joined a fraternity packed with 1980 Cadillac Sevilles and changed itself to blend into such rarified air. It started life as a 5.0-liter 1974 Maverick GT, but the donor received a quartet of square headlights and a host of styling bits from the neoclassic era. Most notable is the bustleback trunk that the Seville cribbed from Hooper-bodied cars of the pre-war era, decorated with Ford emblems and wheel covers that likely came from both the Maverick and the Galaxie/LTD. The Caderick’s upright grille is a staple of neoclassic design, while the custom bumper frames everything with grace.

The Caderick’s transition from headlight assembly to turn-signal light looks, ahem, rushed in its implementation, but this luxurious body is reportedly made of steel and not the expected fiberglass. The final product pushed enough buttons with Motor 3’s editorial staff for them to christen it with the nickname “Mavillac.”

The title is fitting, because the Caderick-Mavillac is the only choice when you want a pedigreed Brazilian race car with the presence of a Rolls Royce. Details on the Caderick’s backstory are light, but Motor 3 says that Shlomo Eliakim from the company Ove Plast Industria e Comercio was behind the one-off neoclassic. That last bit is important, as the Mavillac was made at the behest of a single client, a benefactor who (judging by how little information exists online) likely never sold it.

Perhaps I have sold you on my notion that the Ford Maverick was a rock star in Brazil. And perhaps its star hasn’t faded: In an era of dowdy Darts and boring Chevrolets, it was a muscle car legend. I took a quick look at online classifieds (here, here, and here), and it appears the Maverick is a valuable classic muscle car in modern Brazilian society.

These Mavericks won’t set an auction house on fire like a Hemi-powered ‘Cuda convertible would in the USA, but perhaps a car doesn’t need to be that valuable to be a rock star. The Maverick earned such loyalty in Brazil because it provided genuine bang for the buck, and, as the decades passed, Brazil’s passion for the Maverick hasn’t faded away.