Would You Drive This? 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz Pickup Truck

Tows 5,000 lbs. Looks like a Subaru Baja from about 20 years ago, but with a butchered copy of the 2020 Chevy Blazer's front end.

100,000 mile warranty
Very nice looking interior
Excellent MPG
Small displacement turbo engine just like the F-150

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Hyundai's new unibody pickup is a spiritual successor to the Subaru Baja, Chevy El Camino, and other small car/trucks America has been missing all these years.

Hyundai prefers the term "Sport Adventure Vehicle" over "truck" to describe the new Santa Cruz. Okay, whatever. But it sure looks truck-ish, if not strictly a truck. At its core, the Santa Cruz is—to oversimplify—the new 2022 Tucson shorn of its roof aft of the second-row seat. And that's an idea that goes back at least to the 1957 Ford Ranchero and the 1959 Chevrolet El Camino. Maybe the idea goes even further back than that, to the first owner who cobbled together cargo bodies for their Model T. Point is, the Santa Cruz is new, but the notions behind it aren't.

Designed primarily in Hyundai's California studios, the Santa Cruz has an angular ruggedness that's missing from the Tucson. It's not merely another pickup, but it's not strictly a traditional truck, either in looks or capability. A distinctive design element is the daytime running lights that emerge from behind the grille to make a sort of segmented cascade down each side of Santa Cruz's face. It's attractive, even if it's not shy.

The Santa Cruz's 118.3-inch wheelbase is 9.8 inches longer than that of the new Tucson, and the 195.7-inch overall length is up 12.4 inches. That wheelbase is also 14.0 inches longer than that of the 2002–2006 Subaru Baja to which the Santa Cruz seems a spiritual successor. However, the old Subaru's 193.3-inch overall length is only 2.4 inches shorter than the new Hyundai's. If the Subaru Baja's rear overhang has been haunting your dreams, here's an escape from the nightmares.

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Car and Driver

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Where the Santa Cruz may have a clear advantage is in its powertrain. The standard powerplant will be the 2.5-liter four that Hyundai drops into plenty of products including the Sonata sedan and the Tucson. Hyundai promises it will be rated at 190-plus horsepower. The only transmission with this engine is a conventional eight-speed automatic that feeds either the front wheels or an all-wheel-drive system. More promising is a turbocharged version of the 2.5-liter engine that Hyundai promises will deliver 275-plus horsepower. The turbo engine will come attached to an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive. If Hyundai has kept the curb weight reasonable, the Santa Cruz may turn out to be pretty quick.

Hyundai also plans to rate the 2.5 turbo all-wheel-drive model to tow up to 5000 pounds, which is about 1500 pounds greater than the lug rating for the naturally aspirated version.

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275 horsepower out of something that probably weighs at least 700 lbs less than the smallest Tacoma available. That could be a potentially fun vehicle for younger people. Currently there are no pickups on the market that are smaller than the mid sized Tacoma or Colorado.