Photo: jlord8 / Instagram
As wacky as it may sound, the current revival of the North American passion for compact pickup trucks is not spearheaded by the modern initiator – Hyundai's Santa Cruz. Instead, the Blue Oval Company speculated the auspicious moment much better with the slightly more affordable and standard-electrified Ford Maverick workhorse.
Automotive history is full of such examples where one model reached the market first but was soon overshadowed by a legendary rival. Just think about the Ford Ranchero – Chevy El Camino story, for example. Regarding contemporary nameplates, the Hyundai Santa Cruz – Ford Maverick relation is best described in one word: smartness. Hyundai mulled for years whether or not to put the namesake Santa Cruz concept into production after overwhelming reception following its release at the 2015 North American International Auto Show.
During that time, Ford had enough time to poll the audience and decided to bring back the Maverick nameplate – originally a compact passenger car from the 1970s – as a competing unibody compact pickup truck. Then, instead of making it in the costlier United States like Hyundai does (HMMA in Alabama), the new Maverick is produced in Mexico on the same front-wheel drive unibody compact platform as the Escape and Bronco Sport SUVs. And while it is marginally cheaper, it even includes an electrified powertrain from the get-go. That is a winning recipe, as attested by the bonkers sales results.
As such, currently, there is little that Hyundai can do to elevate its posher Santa Cruz from the marshlands of slow sales. At least, in the real world, that is. But things are decidedly different across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators. And there is no need to take our word for granted as we have an excellent example stemming from Jim, the virtual artist known as jlord8 on social media, who has a habit of listening to his fan base for suggestions on what to render next – and they called for a Santa Cruz HD with dual wheels for ages!
Seriously, a heavy-duty, unibody compact pickup truck with dual rear wheels cannot and will not work in real life, but in a parallel universe of CGI, which is just the latest in a long string of HD dually creations. As a word of remembrance, the pixel master's series also includes stuff like a Nissan Frontier Pro-4X, Chevy Colorado ZR2 Bison Dually or 6x6, a Dodge Charger Hellcat Dually, and of course, the Ford Maverick Super Duty, among many others! So, do we give it our CGI hall pass and send it out for some digital workhorse duty, or is that way too preposterous to even consider such a heavy trail and trailering case?
During that time, Ford had enough time to poll the audience and decided to bring back the Maverick nameplate – originally a compact passenger car from the 1970s – as a competing unibody compact pickup truck. Then, instead of making it in the costlier United States like Hyundai does (HMMA in Alabama), the new Maverick is produced in Mexico on the same front-wheel drive unibody compact platform as the Escape and Bronco Sport SUVs. And while it is marginally cheaper, it even includes an electrified powertrain from the get-go. That is a winning recipe, as attested by the bonkers sales results.
As such, currently, there is little that Hyundai can do to elevate its posher Santa Cruz from the marshlands of slow sales. At least, in the real world, that is. But things are decidedly different across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators. And there is no need to take our word for granted as we have an excellent example stemming from Jim, the virtual artist known as jlord8 on social media, who has a habit of listening to his fan base for suggestions on what to render next – and they called for a Santa Cruz HD with dual wheels for ages!
Seriously, a heavy-duty, unibody compact pickup truck with dual rear wheels cannot and will not work in real life, but in a parallel universe of CGI, which is just the latest in a long string of HD dually creations. As a word of remembrance, the pixel master's series also includes stuff like a Nissan Frontier Pro-4X, Chevy Colorado ZR2 Bison Dually or 6x6, a Dodge Charger Hellcat Dually, and of course, the Ford Maverick Super Duty, among many others! So, do we give it our CGI hall pass and send it out for some digital workhorse duty, or is that way too preposterous to even consider such a heavy trail and trailering case?
Google News