Hyundai pick up surprises Detroit

The new Ford GT may be stealing every headline going, but this butch Santa Cruz concept from Hyundai must surely rank as one of the Detroit Motor Show's more fun surprises.

It's a world away from an i10, and given its prosaic pick-up shape, it's quite a stylish thing.

Highlights? Try centre-locking alloys, like a 911 GT3. Suicide doors, last seen on a Rolls Royce and Mazda RX8 (we're ignoring the Vauxhall Meriva). And plenty of Stabilo yellow highlights, including the calipers of the Brembo brakes.

Far from being show car fantasy, it works, too. A 190bhp/300lb ft 2-litre turbodiesel engine drives all four wheels through Hyundai's ‘HTRAC' all-wheel drive. The designers have squeezed in plenty of links back to the current range, too. We see Santa Fe in the front grille and i20 in the rear lights.

In an apparent attempt to quash the Santa Cruz's unlikely coolness, Hyundai America's Mark Dipko read this out of the marketing-speak handbook: "The Santa Cruz crossover truck concept meets the unspoken needs of a growing Millennial lifestyle we call ‘Urban Adventurers'".

What do urban adventures entail? Hyundai lists examples such as coaching a youth football team, volunteering for community projects and taking the recycling to the tip.

Still, it's a refreshing change from the aggression shown by those pesky X6 Ms and GLE 63s. There's no word yet on if it'll make production.