Aaron Turpen: The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Keeps On Truckin’

If you’ve ever been to a car show that features pickups, you’ll definitely see two things: cars made into trucks (aka unibody trucks) are popular and that pickups have gotten progressively larger over time.

Parking a 1960s or earlier pickup next to today’s half-ton models is like placing a middle schooler next to an Army recruit. Trucks have gotten massive.

So, the return of “compact” trucks to the market was inevitable. With today’s mid-sized options being about the same size as the full-sized options of two decades ago, there’s a clear market for something smaller. Not everyone needs to tow a house or haul around a cord of wood.

There are currently two compact truck options on the market: the Ford Maverick and the Hyundai Santa Cruz. Of the two, the Santa Cruz is my personal favorite because it’s more capable and more confident about what it is. With the success of these two models, though, it’s likely that others will soon enter the field as well.

Which is a good thing, because Wyoming has a lot of trucks. In fact, Wyoming and Montana often vie to be the state with the most trucks by percentage of vehicles on the road. Over a third of registered Wyoming vehicles are pickups. Texas, for all of its cowboy hat bluster, doesn’t even come close. We clearly like trucks, so having access to more of them is awesome.

The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz offers all the truckiness small truck owners need and looks good in the process. Derived from the Tucson crossover-SUV, the Santa Cruz shares the comfort and smooth driving quality of that SUV, but adds a truck bed and better-tuned all-wheel drive system to that. One of the great advantages of unibody construction over body-on-frame is much improved road dynamics and lower cabin noise.

There are two engine options for the 2024 Santa Cruz, both 2.5-liter four-cylinder designs attached to an eight-speed automatic transmission. The standard 2.5L produces 191 horsepower and comes in front-wheel drive with all-wheel drive as an option.

The mid-tier and upper-level trim points for the Santa Cruz add a turbo to the 2.5L, boosting output to 281 horsepower and making AWD standard. In my experience, either of these choices is good, but the turbo gives you more fun and capability.

The turbocharged option adds more driving dynamics through both the engine and the standard AWD. It also ups the towing capacity. The standard 2024 Santa Cruz can tow up to 3,500 pounds, which is enough to haul an ATV or Skidoo on a trailer. Getting the turbo ups towing to 5,000 pounds, which covers most fishing boats and even side-by-sides. Payload across the board is 1,411 pounds.

Off-road and all-weather chops are also pretty good with the Santa Cruz. Hyundai has fielded the Santa Cruz in several off-road rallies, including the grueling Rebelle, and done well.

Like most small vehicles, it gets overlooked by off-road enthusiasts who assume everything needs to look like a tricked-out Jeep to be an off-road machine. The reality is that while that type of specialized equipment can make off-pavement adventures like rock climbing or river fording more fun, most of the time that getup is more of a liability than a necessity.

Add on that the more lifted and fat-tired a rig is, the worse it is once the snow falls and the ice comes. Whereas AWD setups with a moderate amount of ground clearance (ala most crossover-SUVs and small pickups) are capable of most common off-road use and are far better in inclement weather.

Compact trucks like the Hyundai Santa Fe are a great choice for a lot of people. Not everyone needs to pull 12,000 pounds or haul around half a scrap heap in the bed.