The 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz is a long time coming. First seen as the Santa Cruz Concept at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show, Hyundai took its sweet time in bringing this neat concept to life. If the lowish ride height is a telltale sign, the new Santa Cruz is not a truck per se. Hyundai refers to it as a Sport Adventure Vehicle or SAV, but we like to call it a crossover pickup in the same mold as Honda’s Ridgeline.

“Santa Cruz, with its bold styling, breaks open an all-new segment territory, both for Hyundai and the industry as a whole,” said Jose Munoz, president and CEO, Hyundai Motor North America. “Our customers will wonder just how they managed before owning one.”

2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz: Pickup or Crossover"
Riding on the unibody architecture of Hyundai’s fourth-generation Tucson crossover, the Santa Cruz has a small four-foot, twin-level bed instead of a sloping rear windscreen. Hyundai claims the Santa Cruz’s bed measures 48.4 inches long in the upper section and 52.1 inches in the lower section.

So yeah, it’s a pickup, alright, but it’s not the type of truck for carrying lumber, construction supplies, and heavy-duty tools if you catch our drift. Despite this, the bed has a payload of up to 660 lbs., enough to carry bicycles, small motorcycles, and loads of camping gear. But since the bed is around four feet wide, it’s big enough to carry sheets of plywood with the tailgate adjusted in its half-o...