Hyundai Santa Cruz: More Truck Than You Need, Buddy

Let’s test drive and review the new 2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz XRT! Thanks ‪@homefieldapparel‬ for sponsoring this video!
The Santa Cruz is a a crossover-truck, not a traditional one. The production Santa Cruz debuted in 2021 for the 2022 model year, and it’s based on the Tucson crossover. It’s even categorized as an SUV on Hyundai USA’s website (alongside the Tucson, Santa Fe, and more), because Hyundai has no other trucks with beds.
The Santa Cruz has a lot of crossover attributes. You can get it in either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive, unlike a lot of traditional trucks, where the two-wheel drive version drives the rear wheels. Another really important attribute is that the Santa Cruz is unibody, like a car or crossover, not body-on-frame.
The Santa Cruz is part of a growing trend, especially in America, of small trucks and adventure vehicles. There are tons of modern examples of this: the Ford Maverick (gasoline and hybrid), Honda Passport Trailsport, Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch, and more.
In America in 2025, you can spec the Santa Cruz in five trims: the SE, SEL, SEL Activity, XRT, and Limited. The base-model SE trim starts at $28,650 , and it comes with a 191-horsepower, 4-cylinder engine, 8-speed automatic transmission, and a towing capacity of up to 3,500 pounds. FWD is standard, and AWD is a $1,500 option. The exterior colors include blue and red.
This truck is the XRT, which is the off-road edition with exposed front recovery hooks. My only real surprise was the fuel economy, which I expected to be slightly better. The Santa Cruz gets 18 mpg in the city, 26 on the highway, and 21 combined.
In this video, we’ll do a full tour and driving impressions in the Santa Cruz. We’ll talk about the exterior, interior, mechanical bits, how it drives and rides, features I care about (good and bad), and my thoughts on owning one long-term.
We’ll also talk about something I always discuss with new-car buyers: Hyundai’s 5-year, 60,000-mile limited warranty, compared to most automakers’ 3-year, 36,000-mile warranty. The company had a lot of reliability problems on the American market in the 1980s and 1990s, and to build trust and customers back, Hyundai introduced a huge warranty. Now, Hyundai has those customers back, and it’s just a huge bonus.
Thanks for watching my KZbin channel. Enjoy the drive (and the video)!
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