2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz First Drive Review: The Urban Adventurer
The arrival of the 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz begins the era of 21st-century compact pickups, though the Ford Maverick is hot on its heels. This new generation of small haulers measure less than 200 inches long, comes with four doors and feature unibody construction just like the crossovers they’re based on. Channeling historical ancestors like Subaru’s BRAT and Baja, underneath it’s basically a stretched Hyundai Tucson with a 52-inch-long pickup bed.
A just 195.7 inches long, the Santa Cruz is four inches shorter than its Ford rival and petite compared to the Honda Ridgeline (210 inches) Toyota Tacoma (212.2). Its personality and abilities, however, belie its size. As Hyundai sees the buyer’s lifestyle, The Santa Cruz is a small SUV for daily commuting but also a weekend warrior that hauls tents, climbing gear, mountain bikes and kayaks.
The Santa Cruz is fun to drive and has room for five. It hauls a dozen four-by-eight sheets of plywood or tows 5,000-pound trailers when equipped with the optional turbocharged engine That’s the same tow rating as Honda’s Ridgeline.
Ready for Adventure
Priced from about $25,000 to $41,000, the new Santa Cruz comes with front- or all-wheel-drive (AWD) and a pair of 2.5-liter four-cylinder engines. The base model makes 191 horsepower, and the optional turbocharged unit a punchy 281. Both engines get eight-speed automatic transmissions, but the turbo’s unit is a double-clutch automatic transmission (DCT), which sharpens its responses.
We haven’t yet tried the base model, but with the Turbocharged engine and DCT will take the little truck to 60 mph in about seven seconds. It also offers the brawny towing capacity, which not only matches the Ridgeline, but many compact and midsize crossovers, the kind outdoor adventurers buy. The base model can tow up to 3,500 pounds, evenly matched with the Subaru Outback.
Both engines are frugal, too, returning up to 27 mpg on the highway and 21 or 19 in town for the base and turbo models, respectively.
Compared to bigger, boxier pickups, the Santa Cruz looks sleek and playful. The grille is large but not overwhelming, and daytime running lights shine through the openings. Plastic cladding surrounds the wheel arches, and additional cladding is available through the dealer. “HYUNDAI” is stamped across the tailgate and “Designed in California” is molded into the taillamps.
The pickup bed holds objects that won’t fit inside a crossover, such as mountain bikes and surfboards, and items you might not want in one, like topsoil. longer cargo will be strapped down and hanging out over the tailgate, but it beats stuffing them uncomfortably inside a small crossover.
With the core demographic of the urban adventure-seeker in mind—young, tech-savvy, $80K income, shares an apartment to devote more money to getting away on weekends, says Hyundai—there’s a lockable sliding aluminum-slat tonneau cover that is theft-resistant. If the weekend adventurers get home dead tired late Sunday night, there’s no need to haul the gear back inside immediately; it will be there in the morning.
Under the composite bed is a lockable storage bin with a drain. It’s for extra valuables, 100-plus beverages and ice, or the dirtiest, grungiest clothing and gear. Also standard: cargo D-rings, LED cargo lights, sidewall storage compartments and integrated rear bumper steps for climbing in and out.
Ground clearance is 8.6 inches, better than most crossovers, and the rear shocks are calibrated to maintain a constant ride height with heavy loads.
As for carrying plywood sheets, there’s an upper level above the wheel housings just for plywood or drywall. The load bed plus the tailgate, secured at an angle, extends out more than 5 feet, though it’s best to employ tie-downs. The bed is 48.4 inches long at the floor, 52.1 inches at the so-called upper level, where it’s also wide enough to carry plywood.
Inside the 2022 Santa Cruz
The Santa Cruz’s cabin unsurprisingly resembles that of the Tucson, including (on higher trims) the 10.25-inch digital instrument panel and matching 10.25-inch center stack display. Lower Santa Cruz trims get an 8.5-inch infotainment screen and analog gauges with a 4.2-inch information display in the center.
In both vehicles with the larger center display Hyundai eschews volume and tuning knobs for touchscreen controls, which is sometimes less than satisfying for pumping up the jam. Some of the fonts on the digital instrument panel are also a bit too small. The interface isn’t hard to use but for those who aren’t fans, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard.
At least with the Santa Cruz, the driver can rest a wrist on the T-handle shifter for balance while working the screen. The Tucson has a pushbutton shifter flush with the console and no wrist support.
The front seats are suitable for almost any size of occupant, but as in many small pickups, the back seat is a little compromised for people over about five-foot-nine. The Santa Cruz has 36.5 inches of rear leg room to the Tucson’s 38.2, but the crossover’s more open cabin makes it feel bigger If you’re planning weekend adventures for adults, try before you buy. For comparison, the new Ford Maverick, which shares much with the Bronco Sport, has 0.6 inches less rear legroom, but 1.4 additional inches in front.
The cabin’s most thoughtful feature is the climate control’s air-diffuser option, called multi-air mode, which moves a decent amount of air with less noise and no sense of being blasted by pinpoint jets of air. The least desirable feature (after the missing infotainment knobs): four hard-edged chrome buttons set into the steering wheel to control infotainment and adaptive cruise control. Barely a quarter-inch long, they’re slippery and start to feel like knife edges on long drives.
Which Santa Cruz Trim Line Is Best?
There new Santa Cruz comes in four trims, starting with the entry level SE at $25,174 including shipping from Hyundai’s factory in Alabama. The SE comes with the non-turbo engine and by default drives the front wheels, with AWD a $1,500 option. SEs ride 18-inch alloys and their cloth seats have fewer adjustments than the higher-spec trims. Standard safety features include forward collision avoidance with pedestrian detection, lane centering assist and a drowsy driver warning system. Unfortunately, the locking tonneau cover isn’t available on the SE.
The $28,375 SEL fills in some gaps left by the SE: blind spot warning and rear cross traffic alert with intervention, safe exit warning (highway-side doors won’t open if traffic is approaching), satellite radio, telematics and a power driver’s seat. An SEL Activity options package adds the tonneau cover, 10.25-inch center display, wireless phone charging, cargo bed LED lights, 120-volt power in the bed and other features for $3,270. Most weekend warriors will probably choose the SEL.
The SEL Premium, at $36,885, comes with AWD standard, gets the more powerful engine and its higher tow rating, and comes with plusher accommodations. The SEL Activity’s equipment is joined by a sunroof and Hyundai’s slick Digital Key, which allows an Android smartphone or smart card (as at hotels) to unlock and start the car.
The $40,905 Limited, also AWD-only, adds adaptive cruise control and semi-autonomous Highway Driving Assist, which works quite well on interstates, keeping the car centered and pacing the car ahead. There’s also a surround-view camera system with blind spot cameras which display on the instrument panel. It also gets leather seating, premium Bose audio, and natty if rock-damage susceptible 20-inch rims.
Santa Cruz Pros and Cons
The Santa Cruz is a polished vehicle, not unexpected since it’s based on the just-out, next-generation 2022 Tucson. It costs a bit more than the Maverick and notably does not offer a hybrid version as Ford does, but its active-safety features are extensive and it’s both a practical and comfortable machine, balancing passenger room and bed utility well.
If there’s a missing element, it’s that adaptive cruise control comes only on the top trim. Many weekend adventurers will be out climbing or kayaking all day, and adaptive cruise is hugely helpful for fatigued drivers.
The Santa Cruz is sure to be short-listed on many top ten lists of 2022 cars. In addition to the youthful city-centered adventurer Hyundai cites, it appeals to over-40s who garden or make regular Home Depot runs and most of all people who want to look like adventurers. The Instagrammable adventuremobile is almost as in-demand as the real deal overlander these days.
With real towing capacity, modern technology, lots of safety gear and two meaningful rows of seating, the new breed of compact pickups are sure to lure a few buyers away from the crossover craze.
