Hyundai Santa Fe Coming Soon

The new Hyundai SUV is named after the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico and literally means ‘holy faith’ in Spanish. The mid-size soft-roader is based on the Hyundai Sonata platform. It will be imported into India as a completely built unit (CBU) and will be positioned between the compact SUV Tucson and the bigger Terracan, both of which have now been discontinued. The 2010 Santa Fe has recently gone through a mid-life makeover and I feel it definitely has better road presence than its forebears, namely, the Tucson and Terracan. Unfortunately, neither of them could rock the boat in India. The Santa Fe, on the other hand, seems far better equipped to tackle competition.

The body-coloured front grille is embellished by a chrome rim and has horizontal grids along with vertical ones that reminded me of a trident. The slightly arched front headlights blend with the curving, soft lines of the Santa Fe. The high ground clearance and matt silver roof rails add to the sporty design cue without being intimidating. The five-split spoke alloy wheels look really neat and add glamour to the SUV’s side profile. The all-red tail-lights with an overdose of chrome outlay are also arched to compliment the headlight design. Overall, the soft-roader is designed to look sturdy and solid without being overbearing.

The Santa Fe will be a four-wheel drive SUV powered by a 2.2 litre, CRDI (common rail direct injection) engine mated with six-speed manual transmission. The mill can produce an impressive 197 PS at  3,800 rpm and 422 Nm at 1,800-2,500 rpm. We expect Hyundai to introduce a six-speed automatic transmission also as this variant is already available in the international market.

The Hyundai Santa Fe is a very safe car, equipped as it is with several active and passive safety features. It promises a five-star ANCAP safety rating, several air-bags and peace of mind. Since Hyundai will be importing the Santa Fe as a CBU, we reckon it to be priced around Rs 20 lakh, bang-on against the Chevrolet Captiva, Ford Endeavour and Toyota Fortuner.