THE PREVIOUS four generations of Hyundai Santa Fe shared one thing in common. They were all easy to damn with faint praise. Really not bad. There or thereabouts. A lot of metal for your money. That sort of thing.
Did anyone ever dream of owning a Hyundai Santa Fe? It achieved popularity almost by a slow, creeping type of inoffensive overall competence. You discounted everything else and, after that process of elimination, there it was to fit the family transport brief. With the fifthgeneration version, that’s about to change. The Santa Fe has developed a persona all of its own.
Before we go any further, you might well have come to a conclusion on whether that’s a good or bad thing. The styling – especially around the rear end – has the capacity to divide opinion. Spend a little more time with the Santa Fe and it tends to become a non-issue. You’ll love it for what it can do and how it will fit in with your family’s needs without succumbing to lowest-common-denominator blandness. Hyundai’s a company on a heck of a roll at the moment, and the Santa Fe reflects that swagger.
On the face of it, the new Santa Fe looks to charge you more and deliver you less, which seems very 2024. Whereas you could purchase the old car with a grunty 3.5-litre 200kW V6
