2024 Hyundai Santa Fe -- Open for More

LOS ANGELES -- No, we haven't turned into a late-night infomercial, saying "but wait, there's more!"

We're quoting the tagline from the press release for the 2024 Hyundai Santa Fe: "Open for More." So tagged because the liftgate opening is larger.

And, well, there's more. Read on.

Read more
QOTD: Going Blocky

Yesterday we brought you the details on the 2024 Hyundai Santa Fe. The Santa Fe's new duds are quite blocky, just like those of the Land Rover Defender (Hyundai claims this is a coincidence. Other blocky SUVs on the market include the Ford Bronco. Other Land Rover/Range Rover models are squared off, too. Kia, which is a corporate sibling to Hyundai, has been selling the blocky Telluride for a while now.

Read more
Hyundai Santa Fe Undergoes Radical Surgery

It's been a long time since your author has seen a redesign as radical as what Hyundai is promising with the new Santa Fe. Quite frankly, it's a bit refreshing to see an automaker make a change this major -- though there are exceptions, redesigns lately seem to be more often about evolution than revolution. I applaud the strategy regardless of what I think of the execution.

Read more
Face Time: 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe Drops the Towel

It seems potentially controversial front end treatments are today’s theme. After teasing its upcoming Santa Fe last week, Hyundai let it all out on Tuesday, debuting a wildly different fascia with which to temp buyers on the hunt for an “ultimate family adventure vehicle.”

If you’re not up on your corporate marketing-speak, that’s how Hyundai refers to its popular midsize crossover. Despite bowing in fourth-generation form in mid-2018, the Santa Fe rolls into 2021 with a new platform in tow, begging to be noticed — not that it already wasn’t.

Read more
2021 Hyundai Santa Fe: Refresh Time Already

Hyundai apparently feels that boasting the freshest faces in the industry will help it woo the American buying public. With a full stable of crossovers now realized, it’s not a terrible strategy.

Just two model years after its debut, the midsize Santa Fe crossover (which replaced the Santa Fe Sport and necessitated a name change for the existing, larger Santa Fe to Santa Fe XL before that model’s metamorphosis into the less confusingly named Palisade) stands to gain a fairly radical new front end design.

Read more
Thank Heaven for Little (and Large) Crossovers: Hyundai's Recovery Continues Apace

It wasn’t long ago that Hyundai, having rocketed out of the recession on the strength of efficient — and newly improved — product, canned its American CEO over declining sales and made Operation Crossover its primary focus.

The sales slump was almost entirely the product of American buyers’ cold-shouldering of traditional passenger cars, to which Hyundai brass saw a utility vehicle surge as the only remedy. Seems they were right, as Hyundai’s now sitting pretty — and there’s another crossover that’s yet to land.

Read more
Ace of Base: 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe SE

In all the years we’ve been presenting this series, Ace of Base has never focused on what was Hyundai’s first stepping stone into the world of crossovers and SUVs: the Santa Fe. Let’s correct that oversight with this new-for-2019 model.

To be clear, this is the two-row model, not the three-row which currently has an “XL” suffix appended to its name. That machine will vanish when the new Palisade appears later this year. Whatever it’s called, Hyundai sells a lot of ‘em; there must be a reason for that, right?

Read more
Waiting for That Diesel Santa Fe? Hyundai Says Forget About It

If you’re enamored by the thought of a high-torque, compression ignition Hyundai crossover, dream on. After promising a diesel version of its new-for-2019 Santa Fe, which began arriving at dealers this past summer, Hyundai has announced a diesel is off the table.

The automaker admitted as much to Green Car Reports following a plant tour in Seoul. Apparently, Hyundai feels Americans just aren’t interested. With the diesel’s stillbirth comes another change for the revamped crossover: the removal of its third-row option.

Read more
2019 Hyundai Santa Fe First Drive - Remarkably Unremarkable

Calling something “unremarkable” is usually a bad thing. No one likes being called unmemorable or bland. But when it comes to crossovers, which are primarily meant to haul lots of people and stuff, it’s a term that can easily be used in a complimentary manner. After all, few people are looking for crossovers that drive like tall sports cars, and no one wants something so bad that it’s remarkable.

Not to mention that only a few crossover buyers want or need significant off-road capability – and only a few crossovers really offer that, anyway (which hasn’t stopped brands, including Hyundai, from touting their crossovers’ “off road” ability. More on that later).

If you’re selling a crossover in 2018, all you really need to do is come up with something comfortable that isn’t terribly boring to drive. Something that has all the right safety and convenient features, has a price in line with the competition, and won’t require a stop at every gas pump.

Hyundai has most of that covered here.

Read more
Spied: The Biggest Hyundai Yet

There was a moment last week when a few TTAC minds nearly cracked while nailing down the changes coming to Hyundai’s lineup for the 2019 model year. The momentary confusion centered around the bold new Santa Fe, which replaces the Santa Fe Sport (but not the old Santa Fe, which becomes the Santa Fe XL, except in Canada, where it’s already called the Santa Fe XL).

It was touch and go there for a moment. With a wholly new two- and three-row crossover replacing the Santa Fe Sport for 2019, the existing three-row-always Santa Fe (soon to be Santa Fe XL) soldiers on unchanged, though not for long. The full-size crossover seen in these spy shots is nearly ready to step in and give Americans the really big Korean vehicle they’ve always wanted.

Now, who wants to place bets on the inevitable Southwestern name?

Read more
2019 Hyundai Santa Fe Drops the Sport, Adds a Diesel

Hyundai apparently deemed that a thorough restyle of its popular Santa Fe crossover wasn’t enough, so it went ahead and mixed up the model names. Debuting today in Seoul, the new Santa Fe and Santa Fe XL are the latest push by the Korean automaker to offer more product to a crossover-hungry marketplace.

Oh yeah, and they added a diesel option, too.

Read more
2019 Hyundai Santa Fe: Revamped Range-topper Slinks Into Reality

As part of its sales-stimulating crossover offensive, Hyundai’s upcoming Santa Fe will drop the safe styling act that’s carried the model since its inception. The first official images of the 2019 model are out, revealing a three-row vehicle that mimics Hyundai’s smallest crossover, the Kona.

Like that bottom-rung sibling, the 2019 Santa Fe, due for a full reveal ahead of March’s Geneva Motor Show, adopts the brand’s now signature “cascading grille” and a quartet of headlamps — narrow running lights above, driving lights below. Get used to the new face, as you’ll be seeing it on plenty of Hyundai rigs in the coming years.

Read more
2019 Hyundai Santa Fe: Come for the Headlights, Stay for the Brawn

Hyundai’s Santa Fe has been a reliable performer for the automaker, topping up the company’s coffers over three generations and helping turn the crossover segment into the unstoppable juggernaut it is today.

The current generation, dating to 2013, is sufficiently long in the tooth to call for a top-down revamp, the results of which we can see in these official renderings. For 2019, Hyundai’s biggest grows bigger and bolder, but a few mysteries still remain.

Read more
Santa Fe on Its Way: Hyundai's Largest Crossover Dons New Clothes

Hyundai has dropped a few details about its next Santa Fe, including a dimly lit teaser photo. In a confusing bit of theatre, the company says the trucklet will make a world premiere at an unnamed location next month before debuting at the Geneva Motor Show in early March.

Hyundai refreshed its two largest crossovers just two model years ago. With consumer tastes running hot in that segment, the Korean automaker knows it needs to keep up with the Joneses (and the Toyotas and Nissans).

Read more
Hyundai Kona Previews Future Designs, But Don't Expect Russian Dolls

“Each model will have its own identity.” – Luc Donckerwolke,
senior vice president, head of Hyundai Motor Design Center

Finally, long after the Nissan Juke, Subaru Crosstrek, Chevrolet Trax, Jeep Renegade, Honda HR-V, and Mazda CX-3, Hyundai is ready to launch the Kona subcompact crossover, at least in moderate volumes.

The Hyundai Kona is hardly a Tucson Lite; not remotely an Accent Allroad. An unusual face and bizarre use of cladding are all the more obvious because of the Kona’s tidy dimensions.

But while the 2018 Kona showcases a new Hyundai utility vehicle design language, Hyundai’s design leadership promises that future models won’t merely be enlargements of the same.

Read more
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉