2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz Up Close: The Korean El Camino Gets a New Face
The Hyundai Santa Cruz is part of a segment that includes precisely two vehicles: it and the Ford Maverick. Yet they’re two very different animals: The Maverick’s built to be a budget truck, all cheap plastics and cleverness, while the Santa Cruz is essentially a cushy Hyundai Tucson SUV with a small pickup bed grafted onto the back end. It’s a lot more expensive than the Maverick, but it feels a lot more expensive, refined and has far more tech inside. Hyundai gives the Santa Cruz a mild update for the 2025 model year — nothing as extensive as the major rewrite of the Santa Fe SUV, but enough to keep it fresh and interesting, and finally solving one glaring issue that a lot of Hyundais have. We took a closer look at them on the floor of the 2024 New York International Auto Show.
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The New Face
The Santa Cruz already looked like nothing else on the road when it debuted, just like its Tucson SUV cousin, and the update to its face only builds on that. It’s not all that different; only the XRT trim gets some more significant changes to its grille and bumper for better approach angles, new wheels with more capable all-terrain tires, and new tow hooks. You really won’t take a Santa Cruz too far off-road (it has capabilities, but it’s no Jeep Gladiator), but now you can take it a little bit farther than you otherwise could. It might be easier now to tow with, too, as there’s a new Tow Mode for trucks equipped with the turbocharged engine. The changes to the front end look good if not all that different, so anyone who’s just purchased the current Santa Cruz won’t be too upset at seeing that the new one hasn’t changed much.
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Finally, Wireless Smartphone Connectivity
The Santa Cruz’s interior gets a new dash with updated controls and screens, and it looks good. The top trims get a 12.3-inch instrument cluster display and a 12.3-inch touchscreen running the latest Hyundai multimedia system — and wonder of wonders, the Santa Cruz finally offers wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto on the top trim. Previously, Hyundai only offered wireless connection on lesser-trim multimedia systems; the new model year brings a new slate of technology inside, and this is one of the features that’s now standard across the board.
Hyundai’s also done something few automakers are doing: It took some climate and audio controls and turned them into physical buttons instead of touchscreen controls. That’s a reversal of a trend that continues with other automakers, and we applaud it. Physical, dedicated buttons for frequently used features are far less distracting than trying to operate such systems via touchscreens, and nobody really likes having to talk to their car to change the cabin temperature.
Leaving Good Enough Alone
What hasn’t changed? The powertrain, for one; there’s still the standard 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine or the more exciting turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder. All-wheel drive is still available, and the Santa Cruz has proven to be quite capable on soft-road duty as well as on highway slogs and urban sprawl. The diminutive bed out back still has a neat locking tonneau cover and is big enough to carry some muddy gear or building supplies, and the decent towing capacity means you can haul a small trailer with a personal watercraft or lightweight camper without much issue (if you opt for the turbo model with its higher towing capacity, that is).
The changes to the Santa Cruz are mild but welcome, and they should keep the unusual Korean El Camino (as my buddy calls his newly purchased truck) an interesting option for people who want something a bit more rugged and utilitarian than a crossover-style SUV.
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