The story of the Hyundai Santa Cruz goes back at least eight years. It was seven years ago this January that the Santa Cruz Concept was launched at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). At the time, a representative from Hyundai told PickupTrucks.com that it would “likely take at least three or four years” to bring the truck to market in the U.S., but that it would only happen if “gauged interest is strong and positive”.
The good news is that reaction was positive. Now, nearly a decade after that debut the 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz is a reality. What took so long? Hyundai broke it down this week.
It wouldn’t make good business sense to debut a new vehicle on an outdated platform. It also helps to streamline the manufacturing process if many products can share a production line using the same architecture. So, it was always going to be years down the road.
Hyundai’s design team in California took the lead with the Santa Cruz design. Unlike some concepts that come into reality, the aesthetic of the Santa Cruz wasn’t changed from spicy cinnamon into a bland vanilla to make it appeal to the masses. Hyundai kept it unique, if not a little weird, and completely unlike anything on the market today.
According to the design team, the Santa Cruz was never going to share a grille with the Palisade. While the look of the Palisade is brash, bold, and upright, the team didn’t feel that it was right to transfer that look over to the Santa Cruz. The truck has ended up with a variation of the Tucson’s grille, but given the muscular aesthetic of the truck, it plays differently on the forthcoming model.
Early in the design process, a Hyundai employee described the vehicle’s target audience as the folks who park on the side of the road to go surfing, saying that they go from their home, down the highway, to the beach, and need something they can throw gear and boards in that also won’t crowd the driveway at home and parallel parks easily.
It was with those design priorities that the 2022 Santa Cruz came to life.
