The Hyundai Santa Cruz pickup truck is expected to be launched by the end of this year, and will put up against the likes of the Honda Ridgeline, Ford Ranger, Toyota Tacoma etc
Hyundai is working on a new lifestyle pickup truck for a very long time now, and test mules of the truck have been spied numerous times, albeit wearing heavy camouflage. However, the news seemed to have died in the past few months, but it looks like Hyundai is shifting its focus back towards introducing the pickup truck to the market.
The Hyundai ‘Santa Cruz’ has been spied on test again, this time in extreme snowy conditions. The spy shots reveal some design cues of the pickup truck, including the radiator grille that looks similar to the one on the upcoming Elantra. The truck also features large bumper-integrated headlights flanking each side of the grille and slim LED DRLs on top.
Apart from that, the pickup truck features an upswept waistline, heavy lower-body cladding in plastic, and a sharkfin antenna. Hyundai had first revealed the Santa Cruz pickup truck concept at the 2015 North American Auto Show. Four years later, the Korean carmaker finally gave a timeline for its launch, confirming that the truck will go into production in 2021, six years after the concept was originally unveiled.
We expect Hyundai to price the Santa Cruz around the $30,000 (INR 21.84 lakh), which means that it will undercut its direct rival, the Honda Ridgeline that currently retails at a base price of $37,600 (INR 27.38 lakh). The Santa Cruz will be built at Hyundai’s Alabama plant, where the Elantra, Sonata and Santa Fe are produced. The United States market will be Hyundai’s primary target for this lifestyle pickup truck.
The Santa Cruz is expected to share its underpinnings with the Santa FE SUV, and it could also use the SUV’s 2.5-litre inline four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine that produces 277 PS of maximum power along with 422 Nm of peak torque, and is coupled to an 8-speed automatic transmission.
An all-wheel drive configuration will obviously be offered, while it is yet to be seen if a FWD setup will be offered on the entry-level trims.
