What Is the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz?
The Hyundai Santa Cruz is a compact four-door, five-seat pickup truck with a unibody structure in place of traditional body-on-frame construction; it shares its architecture with Hyundai’s Tucson compact SUV. It has a 4-foot open bed with a lockable underfloor storage compartment, plus an available integrated cover, making for a versatile space for a variety of cargo-carrying needs. The base engine is a 191-horsepower, 2.5-liter four-cylinder paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission and a choice of front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. An available 281-hp, turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder pairs with an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission and standard AWD; it comes standard on the Night trim level and above. The Santa Cruz’s only direct rival is the similar-in-concept Ford Maverick, but the larger Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, Honda Ridgeline, Nissan Frontier and Toyota Tacoma mid-size pickups are other competitors.
What’s New on the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz?
A new adventure-styled XRT trim level takes the place of the previous SEL Premium trim. Slotting above the blackout-look Night, which debuted for 2023, the XRT also gets blackout trim elements, along with unique fender flares, side steps, bed rails and orange wheel center caps. Along with minor updates to standard equipment on some trims, newly standard equipment includes LED projector headlamps and a steering wheel that vibrates for alerts from the blind spot warning and lane departure warning systems.
What Features in the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Are Most Important?
Standard features include:
- Cloth upholstery
- Manually adjustable driver’s seat
- Lockable under-bed storage compartment
- Sheet-molded composite bed
- LED projector headlamps
- 8-inch multimedia system
- Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone connectivity
- Automatic emergency braking
- Blind spot warning
- Rear cross-traffic alert
- Lane departure steering assist
- Driver attention warning
- Safe exit warning
- Automatic emergency braking
Available features include:
- Power moonroof
- Rear sliding window
- Tonneau cover
- Leather- or leatherette-trimmed seats
- Power driver’s seat
- Heated and ventilated front seats
- Heated steering wheel
- Dual-zone automatic climate control
- Bose audio
- 10.25-inch touchscreen
- Remote start
- Wireless device charging
- 115-volt power outlet in bed
- Adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go capability
- Surround-view camera system
- Digital instrument panel
Should I Buy the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz?
Whether or not you should buy a Santa Cruz depends on what you need in a pickup. Essentially a Tucson SUV with a pickup bed, the Santa Cruz offers a more refined driving experience than a traditional truck, but less rough-terrain capability and hauling capacity. It’s rather poky with the base four-cylinder but reasonably quick with the available turbocharged engine. The turbo engine and AWD bump the Santa Cruz’s towing capacity to 5,000 pounds, which is respectable for a smaller pickup, but its unibody architecture and 4-foot bed limit payload capacity. In the end, our editors liked the Santa Cruz enough that we named it our Top Pick: Urban Pickup for 2024.
