Without getting into the never-ending debate about whether most pickup owners actually need a pickup, there’s a lot to like about the Santa Cruz. Feeling okay to throw building or gardening materials in the back without worrying about damaging trim, or carrying around oddly-sized or shaped items that wouldn’t readily fit in an SUV, is definitely appealing. The truck’s scale means less guilt when you’re not actually taking advantage of all that practicality, too, though I do wish Hyundai offered a mild-hybrid or plug-in hybrid version.
What Hyundai also doesn’t have is a Santa Cruz N Line or — be still, my beating heart — a Santa Cruz N. While the Night trim may look the part, with its blacked-out grille, bumper sections, side cladding, and rear trim, it’s still not quite the performance pickup that the automaker could build. Given the success of Ford’s Raptor series, Ram’s TRX, and Chevrolet’s ZR2, building a more aggressive version of the Santa Cruz feels like it would be a license to print money.
Chris Davies/SlashGear
Even without turning the truck into the burly little boy of our dreams, though, the Santa Cruz feels like a good example of right-sizing. SUVs may still comfortably out-sell it — American buyers grabbed almost five times as many Tucson as they did the pickup in 2022 — but it’s tough to argue with offering more choices in a segment drivers have already demonstrated they love. If your biggest complaint about SUVs is that their flexibility is too limited, Santa Cruz ownership might be the fix.
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