America’s Smallest Pickup Is Great Fun

Large trucks have dominated America’s roads for the past few decades, but small pickups are making a comeback.The compact Ford Maverick has been a huge sales success since its debut in 2022, and the automaker plans to kick off its new affordable electric vehicle lineup with a similarly sized pickup in 2027, rather than a car or SUV.Today, the Maverick’s main competitor is the Alabama-built Hyundai Santa Cruz, which is half a size smaller. The Maverick outsells the Hyundai by six-to-one, in part because it is available in a very fuel-efficient hybrid model, but the Santa Cruz has its charms.The latest is the Santa Cruz XRT, which is a rugged version designed with light off-road capability. You wouldn’t want to chase a Ford Bronco into the rocks with it, but it can handle a rough gravel campsite road just fine.The Santa Cruz XRT’s bed has a lockable cover and a trunk under the floor. HyundaiThe Santa Cruz is based on Hyundai’s best-selling Tucson SUV and is something of a centaur. From the front door forward, the two are nearly identical inside and out, while all of the pickup stuff is behind the driver.The rear seating area is smaller than the Tucson’s, with some of that space reassigned to the bed, which is roughly four-and-a-half feet in both length and width and has a waterproof trunk under the floor. The Santa Cruz’s styling is far from the traditional truck look, with a short nose up front and flying buttresses angling down from the trailing edge of the roof.Santa Cruz prices start at $31,350 for a front-wheel-drive model with a 181 hp naturally-aspirated 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, but the all-wheel-drive XRT comes standard with a 281 hp turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder and lists for $42,950.Changes specific to the XRT include an exaggerated egg crate grille, red metal tow hooks poking out of the front bumper and all-terrain tires fitted to rims with spokes that look like wrenches to emphasize its added toughness.The Santa Cruz XRT shares its interior design with the Hyundai Tucson SUV. HyundaiThe ground clearance remains the same as the other Santa Cruz trims at 8.6 inches, which is close to a typical Subaru’s, but the all-wheel-drive system is updated with a special Terrain Mode feature that can optimize its traction management logic for snow, mud or sand.The XRT also gets Hyundai’s water-resistant H-Tex faux leather upholstery and a 360-degree camera system that operates at low speeds and is equally useful for squeezing between trees on tight trails or shopping carts in parking lots. A highway driving assistant provides lane-centering adaptive cruise control and there are blind-spot video feeds that display in the digital instrument cluster when you hit the turn signal.Unlike most larger gas-powered pickups, the Santa Cruz has a fully independent suspension system and rides very much like the Tucson on paved roads. It’s quiet, comfortable and the heated seats are perfect for snowy climes. My one gripe about Hyundais is that you can’t turn on the windshield defroster while leaving the face vents on. It’s an either/or situation. The rear passengers do get their own vents, however, along with USB-C ports for mobile devices.The Santa Cruz XRT features all-terrain tires and wrench-style wheel spokes. HyundaiThe fuel economy rating isn’t very impressive at 25 mpg on the highway and 18 mpg in the city, but the turbocharged XRT is quick to pass and merge and can tow up to 5,000 pounds. The XRT also has a hard, retractable tonneau cover for the bed that can be locked for secure storage, although it is not 100% waterproof. Adjustable rack mounts fitted to tracks in the bed sides have a maximum capacity of 440 pounds, the roof rack can carry another 220 pounds and the total payload capacity is 1,411 pounds.I didn’t load up the XRT with adventure gear, but I did take it on a small off-road driving adventure on some fairly rough surfaces in the sand pits of New Jersey’s pine barrens. As long as the bumps aren’t too big, the XRT will happily zoom and slide around on slippery surfaces like a rally car, and I always consider outings like this a success if I don’t get stuck in the sand, despite my best efforts to the contrary.Hyundai last year revealed an SUV concept named the Crater that teases its plans for future models with far more extreme capabilities than the Santa Cruz XRT, but as so-called “soft-roaders” are concerned, the little pickup can put a big smile on your face.

America’s Smallest Pickup Is Great Fun

America’s Smallest Pickup Is Great Fun

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