 Oh, is up you guys, I'll go back to another one. If you are new to this channel, I am Gold Pony, I do new car truck, SCV reviews on YouTube. And today we are in the brand new 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz, courtesy of Jackie Ambalvo Hyundai in York PA. For more information on their inventory, please feel free to check out the link in the description box below. I'm going to turn the air down here today. We are in this one because this is Hyundai's truck. So you got all the utility of a truck, of course, but you also get America's best warranty being five years, 60,000 miles, bumper to bumper, 10 years, 100,000 miles on the powertrain. And you also get three years or 36,000 miles of complimentary maintenance as well, if I could say that word. Meaning you're going to save a heck of a lot of money on the front end there as well. And there is one major change, and we do have it today. I'll explain more in a little bit, but ultimately in this video, we will be testing out and going over everything about this one from acceleration to braking, steering feel, ride quality, sound system, exhaust, all that fun stuff. So having said all of that, what do you got to say? Let's just go ahead and jump right into it. And as always, let's start with pricing. And so as you can imagine, there are several trim levels for the 2024 Santa Cruz. First one being the SE, starting at $26,600. Then there is the SEL for $29,400. Then you have the night trim levels starting at $38,210. XRT, which is a new trim level for 2024. And yes, that is the change. That is the one that we have with us here today, starting at $39,850. And lastly, the limited going for $41,070. And so all of those trim levels, except for the first two, come standard with all-wheel drive. The first two come standard with front-wheel drive. If you wanted to add all-wheel drive, simply have $1,500 to either of those prices. But as you can imagine with all of those trim levels, there are a couple different power plants available for the Santa Cruz. First one is going to belong to the SE and SE L trims. That one is powered by a 2.5-liter naturally aspirated inline-force cylinder, putting out 191 horsepower at 6,100 RPM, 181 pound-feet of torque coming in at 4,000 RPM. Power sent to front wheels or all wheels through an eight-speed automatic. Zero to 60 time for that one, approximately 9.3 seconds there, with MPG numbers coming in at 22 in the city, 26 on the highway for the front-wheel drive, 21 in the city, 25 then on the highway for the all-wheel drive, taking regular, unleaded fuel. By the way, towing capacity comes in at 3,500 pounds then for that particular engine configuration. But so then, there is that other power plant that's going to belong to the nitrum level and up and the one that we have today, being a 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, putting out 281 horsepower at 5,800 RPM, 311 pound-feet of torque coming in at 1,700 RPM. Power sent to all four wheels. This is an all-wheel drive only through an eight-speed wet-dool clutch with paddle shifters. That's a racing transmission, you guys. So I'm excited to try that out. But anyways, zero to 60 times approximately 6.5 seconds with MPG numbers at 19 in the city, 27 on the highway, still taking regular, unleaded fuel. Gotta love that. Towing capacity for this one, 5,000 pounds. But so now we've got all of that out of the way. Before we do any kind of paddle shifter or acceleration test, I wanted to touch on the drive modes. There's this little toggle switch labeled drive mode. Go figure, just behind the shifter that will include normal, sport, smart and snow, adjusting things like the shift points, throttle response, steering sensitivity. And actually, the all-wheel drive system engagement then as well. So now having got all of that out of the way, what do you guys say? Let's go ahead and find a straightaway. Let's put the paddle shifters here to the test first and let's see how quickly these paddle shifters are going to react for us here. All right, so before we do this paddle shifter test, I did want to mention I just slid the shifter all the way to the back and to the left. That is the full manual shift mode. So I have full control over the shifting here and I think we found our straightaway. We got a Tesla Model Y behind us. Let's see if you can keep up. Oh, I left him in the dust. That's right, Tesla, brilliant. Anyways, paddle shifters are actually really darn quick which you don't expect in a truck and you don't even expect a truck to have paddle shifters quite honestly, but this is a wet dual clutch transmission. So like I said, more of a sportier transmission option and gotta say, paddle shifters were dang quick. And the other reason why it's nice to have paddle shifters is if it's snowing out, perhaps instead of using the brakes and sliding off the road, you can always just use the paddle shifters to do a little bit of engine braking so you're less likely to slide off the road. So they're there for that as well. But now let's go ahead and find one more straightaway. Let's put the acceleration here to the test now and let's see how quickly we can get our new Santa Cruz here up to speed. All right, in three, two, one, go. There it is. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, baby. Slight bit of turbo lag, just a slight bit though. It wasn't as horrible as it traditionally find with turbo four cylinders, but that's plenty of an acceleration, man. No wonder we smoked that Tesla. I'm just kidding. But plenty of an acceleration for merging on to the highway. That was dang good. That was in sport driving mode and that was a heck of an acceleration for a truck. I'll put it that way. But anyways, to go along with that acceleration is always braking is equally important. So upfront you will find 12.8 inch ventilated front disc and the back 12.8 inch solid rear disc. As far as that braking feel goes since there's nobody behind us here, it's actually brilliant. It's a little on the soft side, but it's brilliant. It immediately brings you to a stop. So definitely no issues when it comes to the braking feel in the Santa Cruz. Then touching on suspension and handling a front, you're gonna get a McPherson strut front suspension in the back, independent multi-link rear suspension front and rear stabilizer bars. And as far as ride quality goes, it's actually been perfectly fine on my short load test drive here today, even though we kind of had the new off-road trim level for this truck, I still, it rides perfect. Just like an SUV would, I'll put it that way. So absolutely no issues there. As far as steering feel goes, let me put it back in sport driving mode. It's definitely noticeably way to your steering feel 100% when you put it in that sport driving mode. So if you like a heavier steering feel, the Santa Cruz gives it to you. But then if you don't just put it back in normal and it instantly loosens up that steering feel. So it's kind of got something for everybody there. As far as cabin noise goes, that's been perfectly fine as well. I even hear a little bit of the turbo whistle when you really get on it. So that I actually love. I love hearing that. But yeah, as far as road noise, wind noise, that kind of thing, absolutely perfectly fine. No issues there. It's actually got visibility. It's like a truck. You can see perfectly fine out the back there. So no issues yet again. And there's actually a blind spot view monitor if you were to go with that limited trim level. And what that is essentially is when you put your turn signals on and the digital gauges that I'm looking at right now. If you put it onto the right, it's going to display what is in your blind spot on the right side of the digital gauges. If you put it on the left, the left turn signal then it's going to display in the speedometer what is on your blind spot on that side. So that is a pretty cool little feature. Hyundai puts on a lot of their other vehicles as well. So I always like to mention that. But that pretty much rounds out the performance segment in this review guys. Let's now go ahead and take a look at the exterior of our brand new 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz. And so here she is you guys, the new 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz finished in California sand. Okay, I think maybe Desert Storm would have been a cooler name for this exterior color but we'll go with California sand for now. But anyways, let's go ahead and start with where the Santa Cruz is actually made. Take a look at the bin. First character is the number five indicating that this truck is built and assembled here in the US specifically, Alabama. In case you were curious, but let's go ahead and start up front. Of course you do have that Tucson style front grill. That's where the Santa Cruz front grill originally came from the styling aspects at least. So I do love that because you have the LED daytime running lights incorporated into the front grill. Now don't get me wrong, Santa Cruz does have his kind of own flair to it. So it is slightly different but the kind of design inspiration I would say definitely came from the Tucson. But anyways, LED headlights do actually come standard on every single trim level across the board. So absolutely love that. They do come with the automatic feature as well. So when it starts to get dark out at night those headlights are gonna turn on automatically for you there. As you guys can see there is the adaptive cruise control sensor down below. I'll get more into that when we get to the safety portion of this review. There are actually some front skid plates. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to show those to you guys but there are front skid plates down below in case you were curious. You do a little bit of a light overlanding perhaps but there are some added black accents then for the night trim and also the XRT that we have today. So this is the new trim level. Let me know what you guys think of it in the comments section below. Let me know if you think it looks good. I think it looks dang good especially in this color but anyways they're pretty much rounds out the front end. Let's now go ahead and make our way to the side. All right, so now since we are around to the side of the Santa Cruz roof rails will come standard on all trim levels across the board. Got that kind of floating roof line towards the back there separating the roof from the rest of the body that looks good. Roof privacy glass does come standard as well. Take a look at the side mirrors. Body colored power adjustable side mirrors do come standard. They will be heated if you go with the SEL trim level and up. You will also get LED integrated turn signals with that SEL trim level and up then as well. You are gonna find some added matte black accents if you were to go with that XRT trim level like on the bottom of the doors you guys could see with the Santa Cruz lettering spelled out on the rear doors. I think that's a nice little added element there and got some running boards on the XRT as well. That's another little added element for the XRT trim that we have today. Not to mention the wheels. I'm kidding ahead of myself. Let's go ahead and mention it. 18 inch alloy wheels coming with the SEL and XRT trims. But the XRT does get unique 18 inch alloy wheels. So they are gonna look a little bit different than the other trim levels and then 20 inch alloys for the night and the limited. One of my favorite aspects about the side profile I can't overlook it. Both over top of the front and rear tires you have little pictures of the actual Santa Cruz. So I think that's a nice little Easter egg I guess you can call it. Jeep does a lot of that stuff too but the Santa Cruz is pulling out those little elements as well. So I think it looks dango but that pretty much rounds out the side profile. Let me know what you guys think again. So now go ahead and make our way to the back. All right so now since we are around to the back of the Santa Cruz all the way to the top it does say to go ahead and like the video since you got this far I do appreciate it. But you will find a gloss black shark fin antenna all the way to the top. Of course you got a center high mount stop lamp up there as well. LED tail lights do come standard on every single trim level across the board. Very unique design as well. Not to mention I like this little Hyundai logo kind of etched into the rear handle there for the lift gate. You got that awesome XRT badging found on the rear tailgate. Not to mention the tailgate assist steps and I'll show you guys that in a split second here but you do have some tailgate assist steps back there so it's a lot easier to get up into the tailgate itself if you needed to. But anyways there is a single exhaust outlet tucked away all the way underneath there. So having said that I do believe you guys know what we have to do next is always here is that exhaust clip. All right so now since we are around to the back of the Santa Cruz when it comes to opening that rear tailgate there actually is a button on the key fob believe it or not but there's also a button of course on the tailgate itself and it is a hydraulic lift gate so or tailgate I should say. So it does fold down slowly as opposed to just dropping down like some other pickup trucks do. Anyways once opened up this is a four foot bed that you're looking at. There's a composite molded material that does come standard. It's not like a steel finish where you have to pay extra then for a composite mold or a drop in or spray in bed line or whatever the case. It's a composite molded material that comes standard. So gotta love that when you're comparing it to other pickup trucks out there. As far as payload capacity goes the standard setup is gonna be 1,579 pounds. If you go with the turbocharged engine that does bump that up pretty substantially to 1906 pounds. So that's where that comes in at. Cargo lightning does come standard back there. A tonneau cover comes standard though as well and it's a very nice tonneau cover. That opens and closes pretty darn easily so you can leave it open or you can shut it. It's very convenient I'll just put it that way. There's some storage kind of on the side inside of the bed. I liked seeing that and within that you can also find a 115 volt power outlet so you can charge up your drills or your toaster. You could take this thing camping and charge up a toaster for toast in the morning. I don't know. Tie down cleats back there as well and perhaps one of my favorite parts just like the ridgeline. There is some in-floor storage or embed storage, whatever you wanna call it with the drain plug as well so you can kind of fill this up with ice and use this truck as a tailgate vehicle if you wanted to do that. So I love it but anyways, then making our way up to the rear legroom that comes in at 36.5 inches for reference. I mean even six feet tall. This is how much space I had back there and you can also find a manual rear sliding window of course in typical truck fashion so I like seeing that back there as well but now let's go ahead and make our way up to the front seats. Eight-way power driver seat with power lumbar coming with the SEL trim leveling up. SEL also gives you heated front seats, ventilated front seats are gonna come on the limited. You're gonna find cloth seating on the SE and SEL trims, leatherette seating on the night trim and the XRT that we have right now and then leather seating on the limited. Overall, seating was incredibly comfortable for whatever reason, these seats are great and my very favorite part of the seating is these headrests, believe it or not, are like BMW and Mercedes quality. They're like little pillows for the back of your head. I have not felt this comfortable of headrest since me reviewing BMWs and Mercedes so they are quite comfortable and I didn't expect that at all because I just got done driving the Tucson and that wasn't the case but in the Santa Cruz it 100% is so huge fan of that. Anyways, let's take a look at the steering wheel it is tilt and telescoping and is leather wrapped for the XRT trim level end up and then heated for the limited so no issues with the steering wheel. 10 and two groups are pretty nice as well. Then make our way to the startup at the SEL trim leveling up though it is keyless entry with a push button start so all I'm going to do here is simply put my front of the brake and press that silver engine start button located just to the left of the infotainment screen and so once started up anal on gauges are going to come on the SEL and SEL trims but there is a 10 and a quarter inch digital gauge cluster that comes on the night trim leveling up it's going to be optional for the SEL if you wanted that but that is currently what you guys are looking at you got your speedometer on your left tachometer is on your right and of course when you change the drive modes like specifically to sport it completely changes the look as well you got some carbon fiber backgrounds there but back to normal and all the other drive modes they're going to look the same but there are some steering wheel mounting controls as well you can adjust what is on there so outside temperature how many miles you have left until you empty of course gives you the basics like that as well but now let's go ahead and make our way to overall interior quality there is a power sunroof that is available we do have that with us today so I love that auto dimming rear view mirror with home look controls is going to be available dual zoom climate control for the SEL trim level end up overall this interior is basically identical to the Hyundai Tucson I will say that the same design of the doors that continues above the passenger side glove box it's all completely identical to the Tucson just in front of the shifter you got a little bit of rubberized storage there's a wireless phone charger to the right there as well that's pretty cool couple USB charging ports 12-volt power outlet as well just to the right of the shifter you have a couple cup holders a lecture mechanical parking brake and within center arm rest the exact same yet again as the Tucson so a decent amount of space there interior quality will certainly get the job done but now let's go ahead and take a look at the infotainment screen so 8-inch color touchscreen display is going to come in the S-E and S-E L trims but if you were to go with a night trim level end up you're going to find 10-1 quarter inch color touchscreen display giving you Bluetooth and audio streaming either way Android Auto Apple CarPlay either way factory navigation system coming with the night trim level end up climate control settings are available within that screen you can check out your ambient lighting settings if you go with the limited that's the only way you're getting ambient lighting but at least they offer it so I do like that there's a quiet mode up there so you could eliminate the rear speakers and limit the speakers in the front if you got kids sleeping in the back maybe you can also of course check out your radio information and so when it comes to the sound systems there's two of them you're going to find six speakers for all trim levels but the limited limited trim is going to give you a Bose sound system so having said that what you guys say let's go ahead and turn on the radio see what we got playing today and let's test out our six speaker sound system that we have with us here today it's okay it's really not that bad honestly for six speakers is one of the better sound systems that I typically hear the bass was decent the clarity was definitely decent on SiriusXM there so it's not that bad honestly I got no issues with that sound system but one issue I will say I wish there was a volume knob but anyways last thing I wanted to mention to you guys on the infotainment screen is when you do put the Santa Cruz in reverse you will find a rear view camera coming standard across the board letting you know who or what is behind you, which is always going to lead us into safety. And so to start, the Santa Cruz is an IIHS top safety pick. So it's a wonderful start right there. Front side, side current airbags do come standard. In the back, you're gonna have latch, AKA lower acres of tethers for children for the rear car seats, rear child door locks, tire pressure monitoring system, but also coming standard, forward collision avoidance assist, lane keep assist, and a driver attention warning system. So ultimately, when it comes to my final thoughts here of the Santa Cruz, I love the utility of a truck. Even if you're just taking stuff to the damper, if you got woods in the backyard and you're hacking down limbs and you need to take some limbs somewhere. So I love the utility of a truck because you don't understand how often you end up using that. So I'm just saying that. Also pretty darn good tech as well, the infotainment, the digital gauges. So I love the tech in this thing. Also I'm a big fan of the exterior styling in this XRT trim level overall. Definitely gives it a more rugged look, especially in our exterior color that we have on this one here today. So 100% digging the looks. I will say when I read off the specs for that base engine, although we don't have it in this particular configuration, zero to 60 in 9.3 seconds, that's slow. Like that's really, really slow. So just keep that in mind if you go with one of those base engines, it's not gonna be the quickest. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing. I'm just saying it's gonna be something that you just get used to just because that's not a quick number. But this particular engine that we have today, this thing is pretty darn quick. The only other room for improvement I can honestly think of is a volume knob because it just takes a little bit longer to do it in this current fashion that the way they got it set up. Anyways, let me know what you guys think of the Santa Cruz in the comments section below. That is about it for this one, you guys. Thank you so much for watching. Feel free to follow me on social media at the bottom of the screen. If you wanted to see what's coming next on the channel before it gets to YouTube, be sure to hit the subscribe and the bell notification button if you're in the new car reviews because that is what we do here on this channel after all. Do appreciate you guys watching more than you know and I will see you guys all in the next video. Stay gold.