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Hyundai Unveils New Santa Fe with "Terrace-Like Tailgate Space"

The latest Range Rover competitor

By Rain Noe - July 20, 2023

in Cars

Range Rover has so nailed the proportions of an SUV that everything else in the class simply mimics it. This week Hyundai unveiled their newly-upmarketed Santa Fe, which at first blush resembles a Range Rover with rectilinear surfacing to distinguish it:

However, in profile we do see Hyundai's designers making a further departure, messing with the vaunted proportions a bit:

What's going on with that back end, you say? The designers have sacrificed a bit of angle-of-departure either for cubic footage, or to make a style statement:

Maybe I'll change my mind on the street, but that back end just doesn't sit right, to my eye. I fully admit that that's because the Range Rover's proportions have burned themselves into my brain as the pure distillation of the class, sort of like what Jony Ive used to talk about with iPhones and "inevitable" design.

For their part, Hyundai explains the Santa Fe's rear by saying their designers "took an unconventional approach with a lifestyle-based design typology to maximize rear cargo capacity and better accommodate outdoor and urban activities."

SangYup Lee, who heads up Hyundai's Global Design Center, refers to it as a "terrace-like tailgate space," and they've got product imagery to match:

At press time shots of the interior were sparse, but we do see that the dash is startlingly modernist:

A nice touch is that they've got a conveniently-located phone tray with charging for both driver and passenger:

We expect to see more images (and hopefully some renderings) when the vehicle makes its official world premiere this August.

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Jason Blandford

a year ago

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The design around the rear bumper appears (to me, anyway) to make it easier to back up -- into parking spaces, around tight corners, etc.

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Dan Lewis

a year ago

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"terrace-like tailgate space," I guess that's a selling point for a floor that isn't flat. YIKES

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steve hassler

a year ago

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Too much detail for the sake of detail has become the American way. You see it in our cars and in our homes. Everyone needs to revisit Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design.

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