The Hyundai HCD-15 Santa Cruz was one of the biggest hits at the North American International Auto Show in 2015. A year later, the company promised that a production version was a matter of when, not if. Well, half a decade has passed since then, but the Santa Cruz is finally happening.
Ahead of the Santa Cruz’s unveiling on April 15, Hyundai released a video from its design studio in California discussing the new “not a truck.” Yes, Hyundai insists it’s “not a truck,” as Hyundai North America Design Manager Brad Arnold asserts in the video. “It’s a Santa Cruz,” he concludes.
It turns out, first and foremost, it was meant for the city. “It’s meant to thrive in dense urban environments and the outdoors,” says Arnold, but the order here seems significant. According to spy photos, it shares a lot with the Tucson, and no one would mistake that SUV for an off-roader.
The unibody architecture with a pickup bed is what Australians would call a ute, but it’s also different from the style best embodied by the Chevrolet El Camino and the Ford Ranchero. Those were low to the ground and only had a platform for cargo. The Santa Cruz, however, will have “both open and closed storage,” according to Arnold.
So, is it more like a Ridgeline? Not entirely because, if it’s based on a Tucson, it will be a size smaller than Honda’s midsize pickup. In terms of features, it seems to fill the gap left by 2WD pickups from the 1970s and 1980s, from companies like Toyota, Datsun, Mitsubishi, and Isuzu. However, those were body-on-frame construction, not unibody.
So, perhaps the Santa Cruz is truly unique in its class. The Santa Cruz debuts on April 15, and even if it’s been six years since the concept, at least Hyundai is keeping its promises.
