The first Hyundai Santa Fe was as round as the new one was sleek

Anyone who thinks of a Hyundai from around the turn of the century probably envisions either nothing at all or a very ‘bulky’ model. From the Atos to the Lantra and from the Sonata to the Coupé: rounded, organic shapes were all the rage at Hyundai at the time. That started to change around 2000 with the arrival of much sleeker models such as the Getz, but the first Santa Fe was still clearly of the bulging generation.

The Hyundai Santa Fe, named after a city in New Mexico, was released in 2000 and has always been the largest SUV model in Hyundai’s range in Europe. Things were and are different in America and Asia. The fact that around the turn of the century we were still searching for what exactly an ‘SUV’ should be is evident from the offerings from Hyundai and sister brand Kia. At Kia, the Sorento was ready around the same time, a real body-on-frame SUV with off-road vehicle characteristics and longitudinally mounted engines that basically drove the rear wheels. The Santa Fe was much more of a true passenger car with a monocoque body, transversely mounted engines and front-wheel drive, although the Korean SUVs were of a similar size.

Seven-seater

In any case, the somewhat tasteful, excessive design of the first Santa Fe was consistently implemented, because the inside is also designed as if Hyundai had to get rid of as much material as possible. With a facelift in 2004, the whole thing was tightened slightly and the second generation Santa Fe, from 2005, is much less polarizing all around. The still rounded, but much more calmly designed body of this car envelops a similarly taut interior, with more space and, for the first time, an optional third row of seats. It does have one external peculiarity: the asymmetrically placed handle for the tailgate ensures that a European-sized license plate cannot sit in the center of the intended opening on this car. This works with shorter plates of ‘American format’, but in Europe such a second Santa Fe looks somewhat strange from the back.

Forget

If we had to characterize one Santa Fe from a total of five generations as ‘forgotten’, it would without a doubt be the third edition. It appeared in 2012 and remained until 2019, but at that time only a handful of Santa Fes were sold in the Netherlands every year. Hyundai offered the Santa Fe for the first time in a longer and a shorter variant with the arrival of this generation, but in the Netherlands we only got the ‘short’ version. It was also slightly longer than the previous one and offered seven seats as usual, but the larger Grand Santa Fe, which is not available here, was of course more spacious. In terms of design, we can describe this SUV as slightly more confident and sharper than its predecessor, but still somewhat interchangeable.

The Grand Santa Fe was larger and had a different butt than the regular Santa Fe (above)

Hybrid to the rescue

With generation 4, from 2018, the Santa Fe gained some more self-confidence. Yet this car is also a relatively unknown appearance in the Netherlands, which should of course not be a surprise given the BPM based on CO2 emissions and the arrival of more compact, more affordable SUVs. What does help a little is that the Santa Fe is also available as a hybrid and even as a plug-in hybrid since its very significant 2021 update. That suddenly makes it interesting for the Netherlands, although it remains striking that its brother Kia Sorento clearly attracts more buyers here. Perhaps Hyundai can change that with the new Santa Fe, which, unlike the facelifted Sorento, is really completely new. Just like the very first edition, the new Santa Fe is truly distinctive with its design, but with sleek instead of convex shapes. It has traditionally appeared as a seven-seater and for the first time it has to tolerate a model of a similar size: the electric Hyundai Ioniq 7.