Hyundai’s Santa Cruz Crossover Truck Concept unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show is the kind of pick-up truck the automaker believes the Millennials would buy. Why bother designing a truck for the Millennials? Well, they represent the second-largest population of car buyers, that’s why.

Hyundai calls these people “Urban Adventurers” and says the Santa Cruz meets their unspoken needs. In the words of Mark Dipko, director, corporate planning, Hyundai Motor America, “this new crossover allows them all the expandable utility they need throughout their active week, from work-life professionalism, to social interests, to a whole variety of outdoor pursuits, without the typical compromises they have come to expect from the industry’s current product offerings.”

So basically it’s about versatility and the Santa Cruz knows a thing or two about that. Unlike traditional pickups, it’s designed to meet the specific group of customers’ desires for expression, efficiency and maneuverability.

Has a 190 bhp 2.0-liter turbodiesel engine

Hyundai has introduced today in Detroit the rather surprising Santa Cruz Crossover Truck Concept.

Targeting "millennial lifestyles", Hyundai's brand new concept is rethinking the idea of a utilitarian truck and this vehicle is addressed to new generation of car buyers who are "urban adventurers" and are in need of a versatile yet stylish type of transportation. Rather than implementing a more rugged design suitable for a truck, Hyundai went for a bolder look with a big hexagonal front grille, honeycombed headlights and prominent fog lights featuring LED tech.

The concept rides on oversized alloy wheels equipped with center-locking hubs and wrapped around in Michelin tires matched with yellow Brembo brake calipers. At a first glance it might look like it has only two doors but the Santa Cruz actually comes with rear-hinged rear doors providing an easier access to the rear seats and they blend nicely with the overall design.

Power comes from a four-cylinder, 2.0-liter turbodiesel engine outputting 190 bhp (142 kW) and 300 lb-ft (406 Nm) of torque sent to a HTRAC all-wheel drive system which enables the truck to return 30 mpg US (36 mpg UK or 7.8 liters / 100 km).

Hyundai hasn't said anything about the chances of seeing a production version based on the concept.

Long rumored to launch a pickup truck in the U.S. market, Hyundai has stoked the flames with the reveal of the new Santa Cruz concept at the Detroit Auto Show.

A true compact pickup truck, it’s in no way a competitor to top sellers like the F-150 or even the new Chevy Colorado and it isn’t supposed to be.

“We are not exploring conventional pickups,” said Hyundai Motor America VP of product planning Mike O’Brien. “Our competitors have been making full size pickup trucks, some of them for over 100 years, and they certainly know their customers and they make great products. It’s not reasonable for us to think we can walk into that market and have the same level of competitiveness.”

Instead, Hyundai is looking to take the road less traveled with a pickup that’s truly small. “We need to find our own way,” he said.

True, there’s a market demand for smaller pickups, like the mid-size Chevy Colorado or Toyota Tacoma, but those trucks, O’Brien said, still don’t meet the needs of many buyers.

O’Brien said millennials are moving into urban centers at a much higher rate than past generations. “They don’t have that big parking space that we had when we were growing up with our single family home or street parking,” he said. “So maneuverability, parking and cost of ownership issues like fuel economy are much more important for them.”

He also said millennials have fewer cars per family than past generations for the same life stage. “So they’re trying to get vehicles to do more,” he said.

Not only are the new offerings in the mid-size pickup truck market not very small, they’re also not terribly fuel efficient said O’Brien. “They are very large and the fuel economy difference between their full size counterpart isn’t great.”

For that reason they also don’t meet Hyundai’s need to sell more fuel efficient products in order to meet increasingly strict fuel economy targets.

The Santa Cruz, for example, is designed to use four-cylinder engines and possibly even a diesel that O’Brien said could return fuel economy numbers in the “high 30s.”

The capability of modern pickups far exceeds the needs of most buyers, O’Brien said, and for that reason Hyundai is seriously exploring bringing the Santa Cruz to market. “We’re not expecting to get anybody who’s shopping for a full size pickup, but what we do expect is people that need open bed utility and who haven’t selected one of these other products yet will come to this one and say ‘This is good enough for me. It suits my lifestyle.'”

There are many combinations in life that should never happen; ice cream and raw mince, guns and children, Kardashians and…well anything - all things we’d rather not think about. Yet there are some matches that should be considered; and in this instance, I’m talking about a Hyundai illustrated in ‘Pickup Truck’ format.

Rewind back to this year’s Detroit Motor Show and you’ll no doubt recall Hyundai revealing its Santa Cruz compact utility concept. It was Hyundai’s interpretation of a vehicle that would cater to the needs of people wanting something slightly more practical than an SUV, but not a full-blown pickup.

Recipe for great success may you say? Remember the Subaru Baja? I’m not so sure that it would be a cash cow like Hyundai would want it to be.

Lets move that concept to one side and look at something that could do big things for the Seoul-based manufacturer; I’m talking about a smaller, mid-size truck that looks great with decent off-road and haulage capabilities. Sure, Hyundai and “truck” may be foreign for those looking at a Tacoma, Colorado or Frontier; yet I think with the right attributes it could do well.

Firstly, the design has to appeal; in this instance, a rugged take on Hyundai’s “Fluidic Precision” design language would mix the current corporate look with aggressive creases and diagonal design elements.

The brand’s signature hexagonal front grille (which the rest of the industry seems to be hell-bent on using) sits proudly between recessed LED headlamps, while prominent air inlets house the fog-lights.

Protective plastic cladding protects the lower portion of the body, whilst the rear has a separated cargo bed for other utilitarian configurations. There is only so much you can do with the design of a pickup’s glasshouse - so here it’s rather traditional looking, with a hint of Santa Cruz in the C-Pillars.

Under the hood would ideally sit Hyundai’s current 2.0-liter, four-cylinder turbo from the Sonata; coupled with a new electric-hybrid for fuel efficiency and low-end torque. Power would be sent via an all-wheel drive system and a 6-speed manual or 7-speed dual clutch auto from the all-new Tuscon SUV.

Unlike the Santa Cruz concept which could be based off the new Tucson, this 5-seat compact truck would need to be body-on-frame for better stiffness and load-carrying capacity; unfortunately Hyundai doesn’t have such a dedicated platform, so would need to develop this type of vehicle from the ground up with a lot of investment.

Whilst this offering might have its work cut out for it in the United States of America-land, it could do very well in other parts of the globe like Europe and Asia-Pacific. Light commercial sales in these areas are generally dominated by the likes of Toyota’s Hilux, Ford Ranger (global version), Mitsubishi Triton/L200 and Nissan Navara/Frontier.

Ultimately, this is just my interpretation of a Hyundai pickup, we’d love to know your thoughts on whether or not Hyundai should build such a vehicle in the comments section below.

Under the hood would ideally sit Hyundai’s current 2.0-liter, four-cylinder turbo from the Sonata; coupled with a new electric-hybrid for fuel efficiency and low-end torque. Power would be sent via an all-wheel drive system and a 6-speed manual or 7-speed dual clutch auto from the all-new Tuscon SUV.

The Hyundai HCD-15 Santa Cruz pickup concept was one of the stars of the 2015 Detroit Auto Show and even earned fifth place on Autoblog's Editors' Choice list of favorite debuts. The strong response might have been enough to get it made.

Hyundai research and development director Park Byung-cheol said that the company was considering building the truck, according to Reuters. He warned, though, that there were still some obstacles in the way of the pickup arriving to showrooms without saying what those were.

Rumors about Hyundai considering a pickup in the US go back several years but were fruitless. The Santa Cruz's unveiling really reignited things, though. The North American arm of the Korean brand reportedly chose Detroit for the debut so that foreign executives could see the media reaction to the concept. That gamble might have paid off.

Hyundai's pickup at dealers might not look like the Santa Cruz concept, though. The company said the version in Detroit had nothing production-ready about it and even lacked an interior. At the time, a platform still hadn't been decided on, and the brand had several internal design studies underway.