The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The HiLux accounted for almost a quarter of that number to be the nation’s third best selling vehicle behind the Corolla and Mazda3.
Hyundai has finally revealed the first tangible evidence of its intention to enter the same market segment as Toyota’s HiLux.
The Korean car maker unveiled at the Detroit motor show its Santa Cruz Crossover Truck Concept, a dual-cab ute which is a few years away from production, but one which will eventually give the company access to the last major sales segment in which it’s not represented.
A report from the m.motoring.com.aus revealed Australians bought almost 200,000 light commercial vehicles last year, accounting for almost 20 per cent of the new-vehicle market.
The HiLux accounted for almost a quarter of that number to be the nation’s third best selling vehicle behind the Corolla and Mazda3.
Hyundai, meantime, was the fourth best selling brand with more than 100,000 sales for the first time—less than 700 units behind Mazda and about 6000 shy of Holden—without a ute.
However, the Santa Cruz concept is not quite a HiLux, prioritizing passenger comfort and parking maneuverability over towing capacity, payload and ground clearance.
Hyundai Motor Company Australia Chief Operating Officer John Elsworth hosed down talk of an imminent Hyundai entry into Australia’s lucrative, high-volume LCV segment.
But he could not hide his enthusiasm for the Santa Cruz, for which he attended the Detroit show to see revealed.
“Hyundai Motor Company Australia is very interested in selling a utility vehicle to Australians and believes the brand’s reputation for toughness and reliability will stand it in good stead if and when such a vehicle is brought to market.
“We have no doubt a tough, good-looking Hyundai ute will be popular with Australians. But this is a concept vehicle and we do not make decisions about which cars to bring to market—those decisions are in the hands of our parent company in Korea.
“However we’ve made our enthusiasm for a ute very clear—it surely has enormous potential—and we look forward to seeing how things progress in the near future.
“Hyundai Motor America says a production Santa Cruz “reflects a completely new interpretation of truck utility for a new generation of buyers, especially millennials, who represent the second-largest population of car buyers.”
“The Santa Cruz crossover truck concept meets the unspoken needs of a growing Millennial lifestyle we call ‘Urban Adventurers,’” said Mark Dipko, director of corporate planning at Hyundai Motor America.
It’s not clear yet where the production version would be built for Australia, given one of the reasons Hyundai has long cited for the absence of a ute in its showrooms is lack of production capacity.