If it’s true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Hyundai is about to blow a forest fire’s worth of smoke up Land Rover’s butt. The Korean firm is reinventing its currently curvy three-row Santa Fe SUV and it’s clear from the strong geometric design of prototypes that its design team has been heavily influenced by the Land Rover Defender.
Probably much to Land Rover’s relief, however, these latest images show that Hyundai has mostly trodden its own path with the interior design. Instead of the separate digital gauge cluster and tablet infotainment screen favored by Land Rover’s design team, Hyundai has gone for a one-piece setup that is vaguely reminiscent of the ones in the Ioniq 5 and new Grandeur luxury sedan in terms of its overall dimensions but actually looks more like BMW’s latest iDrive screen thanks to the way it curves towards the driver.
The images also reveal what look like twin smartphone charging trays, a column-mounted gearshift lever (the P for Park symbol is visible on the end of the stalk) and, praise be, a rotary volume dial for the media system. But wait, we can still spot more than a couple of Land Rover references. That chunky steering wheel for one, and then there’s the sloping design of the climate control stack and the fact that the heating controls themselves are rotary dials with digital readouts housed in their centers. Just like you get on a Land Rover or Range Rover.
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We can’t see the rest of the interior, but we know that it will have enough space for three rows of seats, though whether that configuration will be standard remains unclear. The current Santa Fe is available with two or three rows of seats in Europe as Hyundai’s largest SUV there. But in North America, it plays second fiddle to the even bigger Palisade and is only available with five chairs.
The presence of tailpipes on this prototype reminds us that the new Santa Fe will continue to be powered by combustion engines, and those are likely to include four-cylinder turbocharged petrol units, plus a 1.6-liter plug-in hybrid variant. The current model, which is available in both front- and all-wheel drive forms, also offers a 3.5-liter V6 but even in North America, a naturally aspirated V6 sounds fairly out of step with the times, leading us to wonder if Hyundai won’t come up with an alternative.
One thing we do know is that the next Sante Fe won’t be offered as an EV. Anyone looking for a fully-electric seven-seat Hyundai SUV is going to have to wait for the Ioniq 7 expected in 2024.
