Great combination of utility and practicality.
You don't need a pickup, but you need more flex than an SUV can provide? And you want a good warranty? This is the vehicle for you.
I bought this oddball when I moved out toward the country because I needed something that could haul my two 96-gallon garbage/recycling cans the half mile from my house to their pickup point every week (sticking them one at a time in the back of a Mini with the seats folded down was just cruel to the Mini). Trouble was I didn't have the garage space for a full fledged pickup and I didn't want to give up all the nice features of a modern vehicle for a used pickup that was old enough to actually be compact. The Santa Cruz was the perfect solution.
On the inside it's basically a Hyundai Santa Fe - a generously featured, nicely designed, downright civilized midsize SUV with all the modern bells and whistles you could want (except a HUD. I want a HUD). It looks like one from the front, too, until you see it in profile. That's when it gets weird. Like, El Camino or Subaru Baja weird. But in a good way, not a Honda Ridgeline "worst of both worlds" kind of bad way.
The bed is small - only 4 feet long - but it's solidly built and well apportioned with movable tie downs, watertight hidden cubbies, level bed walls, a power source, and even a hidden beer cooler. Mine also has a flipover bed extender and the high-end rigid tonneau cover, which makes it flexible enough to load up with gravel or bags of topsoil one day and then use for boxes of groceries in the rain the next. There's even a way to rig the tailgate so you can support 4x8 sheets of plywood. Just be sure to get one with the tow package if you want to take advantage of its 5,000 lb hauling capacity, because it took me the better part of a year for the dealership parts department to track down an OEM tow harness that would be covered under that fantastic Hyundai warranty.
I got the high end trim, so the little 4-cylinder engine is turbocharged to get better horsepower and torque, and in my opinion it needs it if you plan on using it for any kind of truck purposes beyond simple garbage can hauling. It also really benefits from the great All Wheel Drive system and all the modern safety features like adaptive cruise control and lanekeeping, which combine to help it keep from giving into the temptation to actually act like a truck on the road. It behaves far more like an SUV than like any truck I've ever driven. I've certainly never gotten that what-the-heck-is-the-back-end-doing feeling that you can get in many pickups when their engines get too big for their britches.
Which works great, because this is never gonna be a monster truck. It's a four cylinder that gets gas mileage in the mid-20s even if you drive like I do. If you can find a way to get around the overly large brake calipers (most 17" wheels won't fit) you might be able to get it to look Birkenstocks mean the way your neighbor's Subaru Crosstrek looks, but that's about as far as you can go with it.
And that's ok, because that's what it's designed to do. If you need a monster, get a monster - if you need an offroader, get a Jeep. The Santa Cruz is a civilized little truck designed to let you dabble effectively in the uncivilized world without getting lost in it. So if a mix of sidewalks and trails sounds like your kind of life, this may well be your kind of truck. It certainly was mine.
Recommended
Verified Owner
