Hyundai Grand Santa Fe

Some months after fascinating everyone with this crossover’s new generation, Hyundai now surprises the media once again by releasing the extended version of Santa Fe, whose name is expected to become “Grand” just like the French minivans Citroën C4 Picasso and Renault Scénic, and even the Brazilian sedan Fiat Siena. The Korean becomes very interesting because what may seem like only a long-wheelbase option actually has an entirely different proposal. This article will show how prepared it is to accomplish it.

As it was mentioned in the five-seat version’s article, these cars represent Hyundai’s “post-revolution” moment. After stabilishing the Fluidic Sculpture language with plenty of success, Santa Fe brings a much more elegant interpretation of what’s seen on Elantra, Veloster or even ix35. And since the automaker wants to give a higher-quality impression to the customers, it’s necessary to make bolder investments. North America seems to have started dropping the vans in favor of the bigger crossovers, maybe for their off-road abilities or even just to abandon the boring family-look for a subcategory which is starting to resemble tougher and “cooler” station wagons, like Ford Flex, Toyota Venza or VW’s future production version of CrossTourer concept, all of them with more than five seats. In Hyundai’s showroom, this category was supposed to be covered by Veracruz, but since it was received as nothing more than a bigger Santa Fe and ended up with bad sales, the automaker decided to take this reputation by the good side. They didn’t insist on using a new name and even avoided the other extreme of these possibilites, which would be only stretching Santa Fe Sport. Therefore, as in almost every decision in life, avoiding the extremes turns out to be the best option.

Looking at these two Santa Fe explains why Hyundai will call them Sport and Grand, in some markets. While the front lights are the same, Sport’s grille shares Sonata’s tridimensional effect to highlight the central area, while Grand brings bigger size and chrome painting to create a more solid style. The sides have even different back doors, because Sport uses a smaller third window while Grand’s bigger size imposes a more classical shape. Even the tail lights escaped the money-saving decisions, with Sport using an irregular shape like ix35 and Grand opting for a more elegant design. The cabin, on the other hand, received only functional changes. The same very attractive design seats two more occupants and bigger trunk space here, with seats that can be folded in several combinations to optimize the available space. This car will also bring lots of technology items for comfort and safety, but focuses on a more classical concept, with plenty of coating colors and some wooden details. Grand Santa Fe will only feature a gasoline Lambda II V6 3.3L with direct injection, producing 290 hp and achieving 21 mpg consumption. This car will always use a six-speed automatic transmission, and the announced towing capacity is 11,000 pounds. The US market will have it in four trim levels, with the first one starting at US$ 28.350.

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Hyundai Santa Fe 3

It’s interesting to notice there are some patterns ruling the music industry which could also be applied to the car world. Haven’t you noticed that every year has lots of unknown performers popping with a few songs which don’t take long to become annoying due to the endless repetition, but frequently return to ostracism after some months? Having your own fifteen minutes may be getting harder, but even tougher is to maintain that fame. That’s exactly what Hyundai is now trying to do with its cars, and this article will show why.

Fluidic sculpture is the name for which Hyundai must thank to. This design language first hit the streets with Sonata’s current generation, released in 2009, but before giving the automaker a big series of successful cars, it brought a great opportunity of directing the spotlights to it like it was never done so far. In other words, Hyundai suddenly received all the media attention, but also the need of showing something with enough potential to convert that into customers. After all, this brand was already well-stabilished. It lacked some “extra” item, something that made it stand out in the crowd. So the Koreans made sure to not only show pretty vehicles, but entirely good ones. In other words, new platforms, bigger construction quality and more investments at technology both for luxury and performance. So if they’ve started to sell better products, it wouldn’t be hard to expect the success it has actually been seen in the last years. But as the music stars mentioned at this article’s beginning, Hyundai would soon lose the spotlights to another automaker if it just kept using the same formula. Therefore, in order to preserve the good reputation it now presents an evolution of those original design concepts, with most of the same elements now associated to a much more elegant interpretation.

This new phase started from the top of the showroom, with expensive vehicles such as Equus, Azera and now Santa Fe. The crossover uses slightly more straight lines and achieved an excellent proportion between the windows and the black and chrome parts at the body, managing to resemble most of the current Hyundai cars without looking like some copy. The interior received a great upgrade in everything, with a very attractive design in several coating options, not to mention cutting-edge items such as the panoramic sunroof and the big touchscreen for the infotainment system. This generation differs from the previous because it’ll also have a seven-seat option, expected to use longer wheelbase and some exclusive design items – Hyundai’s idea is to replace Veracruz with it, competing at this one’s market with the bigger charisma of Santa Fe. What the pictures don’t show are the expected engine options: with diesel it’ll use a 2.0L and a 2.2L, respectively with 150 and 200 hp, while the gasoline options are a 190-hp 2.4L and the turbocharged 2.0L with 260 hp. It’ll have two-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive traction options and manual or automatic transmissions, but always with six speeds. The safety pack has obviously increased, too, featuring reprojected braking, suspension and steering and several electronic systems to provide help.

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