Hyundai is poised to introduce an all-new Santa Fe that looks so different from the current SUV that there’s a good chance most people won’t recognize it. In fact, there’s a good chance that plenty of people might take one look at the angular, three-row body and mistake it for a Land Rover Defender.
But the latest spy shots of a Santa Fe prototype testing confirm that Hyundai has two big visual tricks up its sleeve to help telegraph the SUV’s origins. This is our first look at a test car fitted with production headlights with DRLs arranged in the shape of a letter H.
Automakers have been using LED light tech to come up with their own recognizable light signatures for years now. Porsche has four dots and the Bugatti Chiron’s four square rings mean you can tell it apart from other hypercars even if you can’t see that famous horseshoe grille. But Hyundai’s solution is possibly the smartest – and clearest – yet.
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We’ve become used to designers trying to make their lights as slim as possible, often by trying to pass off wafer-thin DRLs as headlights while the actual headlights are hidden in a dark bumper recess below. But Hyundai has gone the other route, combining the two light sources in one boxy shape that perfectly suits the boxy body.
The Santa Fe is also supposed to get a light bar, or “seamless horizon lamp” like the Sonata and Grandeur, according to SangYup Lee, the head of global design for Hyundai and Genesis. Speaking to Motor Trend earlier this month, the design boss also said that the much squarer shape of the next Santa Fe was developed because the design team started at the back of the SUV and worked forward.
“People buy SUVs because of the cargo space at the back,” he said, so the entire project was developed around that idea.
Inside, the Santa Fe will feature a wide digital display combining gauge cluster and infotainment duties, a column-mounted gear selector, and the letter H picked out on the steering wheel in Morse code. Hopefully, we’ll find out more about the Santa Fe’s interior – and what’s under that heavy exterior disguise – in the coming months, because Hyundai is expected to launch the SUV in the second half of 2023 as a 2024 model.
