2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz First Look: Car or Truck?
Hyundai has an all-model dubbed the Santa Cruz. Is it a car or a pickup truck?
Transcript
00:00 I'm Scott Evans here with an early look at the entirely new Hyundai Santa Cruz pickup truck.
00:07 Now, the most important thing you need to know about the Santa Cruz is that it's not meant to be a traditional pickup truck.
00:19 It's not meant for hauling big, huge horse trailers or conquering hell's revenge at Moab or anything like that.
00:25 This is meant for people who live in big cities and want to go out on the weekend and they want to go surfing or mountain biking
00:33 and they need to take all their stuff with them and it's easier in a truck.
00:37 But every day it is more maneuverable, it's more fuel efficient, a little bit smaller, fits in better in the city.
00:45 Now under the hood you have two options. Standard front wheel drive, 2.5 liter, 4 cylinder engine with 191 horsepower
00:53 or you can get it with all wheel drive. You can also upgrade it to a turbocharged 2.5 liter engine with 281 horsepower and all wheel drive.
01:03 Now, don't think that means you can't do anything with it. You still have 660 pounds of payload in the bed
01:08 and a towing capacity of 3,500 up to 5,000 pounds. So you can still bring your toys with you.
01:17 This is the business end of the Santa Cruz, what makes it so unique right here. And it's got a lot of cool features that you've seen in other trucks
01:24 all put together in one place. Like corner steps like you get on certain Chevys or you open up tailgate here.
01:32 Comes with an optional tonneau cover that's actual solid piece so you can put weight on it and lock it so people can't steal your stuff.
01:41 Rolls up easy. Then you're left with a four foot bed. Shorter than other trucks but still enough to hang your bikes over the tailgate
01:49 or load your surfboards or whatever else you've got on there. Plus it's got fun things like little storage containers in the sides
01:57 and like a Honda Ridgeline, trunk in the bed with a drain plug so if you want to put your drinks in there and some ice, it's no problem.
02:05 You just drain it out later. Now the Santa Cruz is based on the Hyundai Tucson SUV. So what's inside might look pretty familiar to you
02:14 if you're already driving an SUV yourself. And of course this one is the loaded model. So instead of the standard 8 inch entertainment screen
02:21 and analog gauges, I've got the 10 inch digital screens across the board here and it's got all the bells and whistles right.
02:28 Wireless charging, heated and cooled seats, plus all the safety stuff. Smart cruise control, lane keeping, blind spot monitoring, on and on.
02:36 In the back seat it's tighter than a Santa Cruz. There's less leg room but I still fit back there just fine.
02:43 And you can also fold up the seats and you've got lots of cargo space and there's even a tray underneath the seats where you can store stuff
02:50 or take it out for even more space. The Santa Cruz goes on sale this summer and we'll have more details when that gets closer.
02:56 But we expect that pricing and fuel economy are going to come in competitive or hopefully even better than the larger mid-sized trucks
03:05 that are already on sale today. For now, you can read all the details we have at MotorTrend.com.
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