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This Hyundai Santa Cruz Test Mule Gives Us Hope That Hyundai Will Finally Sell A Small Pickup
This weekend, 18-year-old Jalopnik reader Ethan Fass from Colorado sent Jalopnik photos of a camouflaged pickup truck parked alongside a number of new Hyundais. Let’s have a close look at what has to be the unibody Hyundai Santa Cruz that we’ve been waiting for since the beginning of time.
“I’m a huge car nut, 18 years old, working at keystone ski resort,” Fass began his email. “I was pulling into my hotel and noticed two new crossovers I’d never seen before and something in camo. I think they’re out here testing a truck.” Attached was a short video of what looks like a pickup truck-ified Hyundai Santa Fe or Tucson:
What we’re seeing here is almost certainly a Hyundai Santa Cruz that engineers from Michigan’s Hyundai America Technical Center have taken “out west” for high-altitude winter testing.
Fass points out a flatbed cover that he could see through the car’s mesh, and he mentions the “really weird roofline,” describing a sail pillar (a sail pillar—found on the first-generation Honda Ridgeline and Chevy Avalanche—is there to provide additional body stiffness for a unibody vehicle whose rear section lacks the support of a roof and body-side-outer panels).
The world has been waiting for the Santa Cruz since the concept showed its sheet metal at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show.
Source: Jalopnik