The 2023 Hyundai Santa Cruz is an award-winning truck, a best-selling and efficient truck. They are also the most efficient and least expensive trucks you can buy new. But, and I knew there was a but, it has a flaw that may rule it out for many truck buyers. What is the only flaw of the Santa Cruz?
The Santa Cruz has the shortest bed of all new trucks
Trucks are for hauling things, and with a box that’s too short you can’t haul much. The Santa Cruz has the shortest bed of any truck you can buy new. Interestingly, Hyundai publishes two different figures for its bed length, one for the top, with the tailgate closed, and one from the ground, with the tailgate closed. From the top it measures 48.4 inches, from the bed floor it measures 52.1 inches. The rear of the cab has a slope that makes it longer at the bottom, and the factory roof also takes up some space.
With a bed that short, you can’t haul much without leaving the tailgate open for all that stuff to slide through. Most motorcycles, for example, won’t fit on the bed, and neither will a sheet of plywood without straps. The Ford Maverick also has a short bed, but it’s four inches longer. The Nissan Frontier has a bed that is 59 inches long, or five feet 11 inches. However, you can order a long bed version that has a 73.3-inch or 7.1-foot bed with the King Cab (two-door) version.
Even the Hummer EV pickup, which is hardly a pickup, has a five-foot, 60-inch bed. The shortest bed in recent memory, however, was the bed on the old Ford Explorer Sport, which was only 48 inches long.
Does the Hyundai Santa Cruz bed work?
The Santa Cruz bed may be small, but it was designed for small truck practicality. It is a molded plastic bed that comes with anchor points and slatted rails. Conveniently, it also comes with an integrated tonneau cover and can hold a total of 1,400 pounds, which isn’t too far off the payload capacity of many full-size trucks. That integrated canopy also keeps prying eyes away from what may or may not be hidden beneath it.
Cleverly, like the car-based Honda Ridgeline pickup, the Santa Cruz’s bed has a lockable waterproof trunk in the bed. Unlike the Honda, though, which has a side-hinged tailgate, you have to get past the door to get to the Santa Cruz’s trunk. While it’s not a huge space, it can handle a few grocery bags. It also has a drain plug so you could fill it with ice if you wanted.
Is the Hyundai Santa Cruz a real truck?
Is the 2023 Santa Cruz a “real” truck? Well, it manages to do a lot of the things that most of us need. It can support up to 1,400 pounds in its bed, can tow up to 5,000 pounds, and can be ordered in an all-wheel drive version. Sure, it doesn’t offer a body-frame design that can tow up to 12,000 pounds or hold 8,000 pounds in the bed, but that makes it safer. But how often do those of us with trucks really need that much capacity?
For 2023, look out for Santa Cruz’s new all-black Night Edition. For most of the things we have to do in a truck, a Santa Cruz can be a good choice, even if its bed is short.