Few family cars are more eye-catching than Hyundai’s latest Santa Fe. It’s a brick on wheels, bejewelled by intriguing H-pattern lights front and rear, rally car-style blistered wheel arches and more presence than a nightclub bouncer. Subtle, it ain’t.
The EV9, from sister company Kia, probably edges the Santa Fe in the look-at-me stakes, but it’s close. There’s an old Land Rover Discovery vibe about its unapologetically bluff silhouette, as well as a flavour of the current Defender. Yet the Hyundai - and Kia - manage to look more modern and less retro than the Land Rovers.
Style statement
Love it or loathe it, the Santa Fe is a strong piece of design. This helps it stand out from rival seven-seat SUVs, which are either drab and forgetful or drearily familiar.
If you are in the market for this sort of car, the Hyundai’s size and price will also make you look twice. Its generous passenger and luggage space means it feels a cut above something like a Skoda Kodiaq or Nissan X-Trail, though it’s more expensive than both (seven-seaters of each cost around £37k, about £10k less than the entry Santa Fe). The related Kia Sorento is another rival, but lacks the Hyundai’s style.
Read more: Kia EV3: The cool electric family SUV your kids will want to be seen in
When it comes to cabin space, the Santa Fe feels closer to large premium SUVs like the Volvo XC90, Audi Q7 and even the Land Rover Discovery; yet it convincingly undercuts all of those.
As well as its deliberate, unapologetic styling, the big Hyundai goes a long way to bolstering its credentials as a rival for those upmarket SUVs through its high quality fit and finish and lavish equipment.
Can a £50k car be good value?
On these pages we - rightly, and frequently - bemoan just how expensive new cars have become. The Santa Fe is priced between £47k and £58k, before visiting a short options list (the test car, in Ultimate trim with metallic paint and four-wheel-drive hybrid drivetrain, was £53,030). Meanwhile, a new XC90 costs from £64k, Q7 from £68k and Discovery from £63k.
These obviously aren’t exact like-for-like comparisons - you’ll typically get brawnier engines in the posher-badged cars, for example - but the Santa Fe’s qualities do beg the question whether you really get much more of substance by spending another £15-£20k. I would contend that you don’t.
Read more: BYD Seal review: Chinese EV aims for Tesla Model 3
Here’s four reasons to choose the Hyundai… and one reason to think twice:
1. The Santa Fe looks cool
Workaday family wagons aren’t usually objects of desire, but the Santa Fe looks cool. Some of the most interesting looking cars on our roads now come from South Korea - Kia’s EV9 and EV3, for example, and Hyundai’s own Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 models. The flamboyant and confident Santa Fe shows those weren’t flukes.
2. Seven-up
There’s space for seven real people. Lots of seven-seaters are cramped for the rear-most five passengers, with the third row really only suitable for children. Though they still won’t want to sit there for hours on end, adults can actually fit in the Santa Fe’s back seats.
Only the Land Rover Discovery - which is even larger - has a roomier third row. All of the Hyundai’s back passengers get access to USB-C sockets, air vents and cupholders. Impressively, there’s still decent boot space with the third row in place; drop it and the capacity is 628 litres, and with the middle row folded a total of 1,949 litres is liberated. Does anyone really need more?
3. It’s loaded with kit
My test car was in Ultimate trim - a misnomer, as it comes below the range-topping Calligraphy - but you would struggle to name anything it didn’t come with. A head-up display, 20-inch alloys, large glass sunroof, heated and ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, leather trim, a brilliant Bose sound system, endless safety and driver assistance aids, Apple CarPlay… and so it goes on. There’s a quality sheen to the interior too, with crisp, double-width digital screens and a properly premium feel.
4. Powerful enough
On the face of it, the Santa Fe’s 1.6-litre hybrid drivetrain, with its 212bhp and 271lb ft outputs, and as tested with four-wheel-drive, might seem a bit undercooked for such a large vehicle. In practice it copes just fine. It’s obviously no rocket ship, but for this style of family car it’s more than adequate. The Hyundai handles gamely but is at its best as a quiet, comfortable cruiser. My fuel consumption nudged 40mpg, which seems acceptable. Two-wheel-drive and plug-in hybrid versions are also available.
And what I didn’t like…
The beeps and bongs of the various safety and assistance systems fitted to the car almost drove me round the bend. The faded and invisible white lines on the side of the motorway, or their absence on a country road, could throw it into a tizz.
It couldn’t consistently read a speed limit sign near my home, the lane assist was unhelpfully jerky and the ‘driver status monitor’ nagged me to take a break every five minutes.
You can modify these settings by wading through various menus but it’s exhausting. Hyundai isn’t alone in this regard, but isn’t there something wrong when these driver aids are more of a distraction than a help? Why not just make them work properly?
