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Hyundai Santa Fe (2006 - )  
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Hyundai Santa Fe (2006 - )

Relaxed motorway cruising, comfortable ride, excellent on very rough tracks, available with seven seats, great value, much improved from 2010 with new 2.2-litre diesel.
Original five-speed manual has big gap between 2nd and 3rd, plastics on early cars felt a little scratchy.

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Introduction

At the risk of upsetting Ken Livingstone, between 1996 and 2005 the UK market for what he calls "4x4s" has grown by 1,310%. Hyundai sells 9,805 a year, which gives it a 6.9% of this lucrative business. Between 2001 and 2005 Hyundai sold 17,462 of its Santa Fe model alone. This probably has less to do with the Santa Fe's off road ability than its on road ability to shrug off speed humps without damaging either itself or its occupants. The people who drive them are far from the "idiots" Ken brands them as. That description might be more appropriate to the people who ordered the installation of the road humps that inevitably led to this change in the type of vehicle so many people now drive.

Meanwhile Hyundai has not let the Santa Fe rest on its muscular haunches. Instead the company presents us with a bigger, better and altogether new Santa Fe; one that can comfortably seat the same seven people as the average 50 seater bus carries, or, alternatively, rids city streets of as many as six unnecessary single-occupant cars.

Instead of the original organic look, Hyundai has gone for clean lines and a soft, pedestrian-friendly front, retaining only the sensible, chunky rear door handle of the original and, less successfully, its 2.7 V6 engine with 4-speed automatic transmission.

 

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Last updated 28 November 2011
More at the Hyundai website  

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