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Hyundai looks to be throwing its hat into the full-size SUV ring; and they’re shaking things up a bit in an American-dominated vehicle class.
When you think of the American way to do things there are many different visuals that come to mind. We try to pride ourselves on being hard-working, tough, and rugged people that can handle the challenges of the wilderness in a country that we’ve tamed over time. This great expanse of a nation has made it part of our collective personality to have large items. We have large homes, large lots of land, large skyscrapers and large vehicles. For the most part, the large vehicles haven’t been challenged by foreign models often at all.
When you think of the large SUVs and pickup trucks that fit into the lifestyle we currently enjoy, the names of Chevrolet Tahoe, Ford Expedition, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ford F-150 come to mind. It doesn’t ever feel like these models are going to be challenged for dominance on the roads and trails, but there just might be a new SUV coming down the line that will take on these large people movers to take over part of the market and become an SUV that we can drive, enjoy, and admire as much as the stalwart performers we’ve loved for several years.
What is this Mystery Vehicle?
Right now, we don’t even have a name for the new large SUV that will be offered, but what we do know is the Hyundai brand is working on and testing a large SUV. The team from Hyundai was recently spied testing a large three-row SUV in cold weather testing. This massive beast was large enough that it would have been nearly impossible to miss and certainly towers over the other models offered by the Hyundai brand. While it doesn’t have a name just yet, we do have a bit of a hint at what it could be.
The new Hyundai mystery vehicle may ride on a large FWD architecture that’s been used by the Kia Telluride Concept. The current version of the Telluride makes use of a 3.5-liter V6 engine that’s mated to a hybrid system to offer as much as 400 horsepower for the drive. There might be a plug-in hybrid model offered for the future as well but the expectation at the launch of this SUV is the gasoline engines only. Right now, this means we may see the Hyundai 3.3-liter V6 and eight-speed automatic transmission used for this big SUV.
There’s a lot that still hasn’t been answered regarding the new eight-passenger Hyundai SUV with three rows of seats, but the expectation is that this model will debut later this year or in the early part of 2019 at one of the shows where we love to see new vehicles. While Hyundai may be more known for their small SUVs, like the Santa Fe Sport, the Ford and Chevrolet teams need to pay close attention to what this new full-size SUV will offer as its ready to target the Expedition and Tahoe in an effort to be a competitor in this large SUV market for the future of the drive we want to make on the roads around this massive country.
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