Hyundai’s design team is absolutely killing it right now. Pretty much everything in its lineup (and its luxury sub-brand Genesis’s lineup) looks incredible, whether we’re talking about the company’s gas-powered offerings or its EVs.
My personal favorite used to be the G90, the huge Genesis sedan that looks far more like a Bentley than even some Bentleys. But as I’ve been seeing them more on the road, I’m really starting to fall for the Ioniq 9, Hyundai’s big three-row EV. There’s something about the monolithic lines and simplistic profile that just works really well.
The company’s design achievements aren’t just limited to production cars, of course. Hyundai flexes that muscle on its concepts, too. Its latest, the Crater, is an off-roader that takes cues from the brand’s entry-level Kona SUV, and turns the off-roadiness dial to 11 with boxy flares, huge tires, a roll cage, and a bunch of other desert-running goodies.
Boxy Off-Roaders Are All The Rage Right Now, Aren’t They?
I mention the Kona above because the Crater has some hints of that crossover’s general design scheme, like the profile and the thin headlight strip at the nose. Hyundai doesn’t mention anything about the Crater’s powertrain, but it feels like it falls in line with the company’s production EVs, what with the pixelated exterior lights (there’s a set of auxiliary lights mounted on the roof that have pixels arranged as faces, which is fun).
The elongated fenders do a lot to buff up the Crater’s footprint, as do the 18-inch wheels and their hexagonal pattern shape. There are lots of small details, too, like the limb risers, the cables that stretch from the hood to the roof to prevent low-hanging branches from striking the windshield.
Those side-mirror cameras can also be removed from the vehicle and double as flashlights in emergency situations, which is pretty clever. And one of those two recovery hooks sticking out of the front bumper can also act as a bottle opener (in different types of equally dire emergency situations).
Hyundai describes the Crater as a vehicle that “captures the spirit of adventure,” with a design “inspired by extreme environments,” though it doesn’t say anything about what’s underneath the skin. There looks to be some kind of long-travel suspension setup, which would make sense for the photo locations, but other than that, Hyundai’s left us in the dark. Like most concepts, it’s likely just a design buck with no functioning drivetrain. Sometimes I miss the days when automakers would make up out-of-this-world specs for their concepts, knowing the public wouldn’t be able to confirm them.
There’s A Lot Going On In Here
The Crater’s cabin is a collection of weird and amusing features. The seats use cylindrical cushions for the headrests that look like Bluetooth speakers. They aren’t Bluetooth speakers, but the car does have a removable wireless speaker you can remove from the center of the dash (something Toyota has already put into its production cars).
The steering wheel has terrain mode buttons built into its center, along with a pixel display that “reimages driver interaction,” whatever that means (I suspect it might be a typo and that word is actually supposed to be “reimagnes,” though my question still stands). There’s also the dashboard, which is just a long, orange-glowing, cylindrical unit that spans the width of the car and looks to be held up, at least partially, by two buckled straps. There are four more square screens in the center area of the dash that act as displays, similar to the funky hatchback concept Hyundai showed in September.
The Crater is a four-door, four-seater vehicle with a set of rear-hinged doors at the back. Opening the two doors on either side nets a good look at the built-in roll cage, which hugs the front seats and looks to go through the center console. If this were a real vehicle, I’d highly recommend driving it with a helmet—knocking your head on that cage in a crash would be bad news.
When asked whether Hyundai plans to put the Crater (or something like it) into production, chief designer SangYup Lee told my colleague David Tracy, who’s on the ground right now in LA, that “we don’t do a concept for an impossible La La Land car.” To me, that suggests there might be some hope such a vehicle could actually appear on dealer floors.
While Hyundai does have a solid track record of putting concepts into production, the one everyone wants, the the mid-engine retro N Vision 74 sports car revealed in 2022, has still not arrived (Hyundai said last year it should be coming by 2030, so at least there’s still hope). By my math, that should mean a Crater production car by 2033, right?
Top graphic image: Hyundai
It looks like a bionic frog. I love it!
Would.
This is the new hero car for the Tango and Cash reboot.. starring Torch & Tracy
Those side view “mirrors” are amusing. Fortunately, it would seem like traditional mirrors may be around for a while yet. The Ioniq 6N preproduction car shown to journalists has digital camera side view mirrors. BUT…. Hyundai made sure to mention the production car will have traditional mirrors.
Why? Well engineers calculated the amount of power the extra screens and electronics digital sideview mirrors use, and it ended up being more efficient to just use plain old mirrors. I call that a serious win.
Fortunately indeed. I do not want to have a display with a fixed view, when a mirror allows you to shift your head right or left to see more to one side or the other – just like reality! Mirrors also retain, instead of eliminating, depth cues from your eyes focusing. Displays require refocusing on a fixed object that is always x.xx meters away, and provide false depth information to your brain, unconsciously.
This looks like it is made out of Legos.
This is the true cybertruck, I don’t know why we got the one from the Dark Timeline. The exterior aside, make that interior reach production please!
Its probably a design direction concept for the Kona, and will be toned down a lot.
This looks like a giant Lego Technic build.
For a goofy concept vehicle, it’s not bad at all.
I wish other brands would take note of this. In my completely uneducated opinion Hyundai/Kia is killing it because they aren’t defining themselves by a design language or beholding themselves to making a “brand style” you could arguably take most of their cars and rebadge them as other brands and it would work. The Santa Fe could easily be a Ford Flex successor. The Santa Cruz looks like a Honda. The Ioniq could be a Mercedes. The Kia K5 looks like a dodge. The Ioniq 5 looks like half 80s rally car, half delorean. But it all WORKS because they realized they don’t have to trade on brand equity. They just need to build cool shit. People aren’t buying Hyundais and Kia’s because that’s what their parents had, or that’s what brand they’re loyal to. They buy them because they are pretty affordable, they have an awesome warranty, and they look sick.
Their design team is carrying a HUGE amount of weight here, but that’s the thing-That’s what design teams pride themselves on.
If you trust your design team and give them freedom without making them design a crossover that has to resemble a compact sedan that had to resemble a sports car, you win. Plain and simple.
It’s like the exact opposite approach to the one Porsche is taking.
It’s the exact opposite EVERYONE is taking. Remember when Chevy tried to make the Camaro look like their pickups by blacking out the front bumper?
YEEESH.
Management? Listening to designers? They love to TALK about design led companies, but rarely do they actually do it.
Yes, they are killing it. However, they shall remain forever on my shit of shit list for killing my beloved Soul.
Dude I am not a big fan of Kia’s (working sales at any dealership will do that) but I picked up at beat-to-hell 2010 Kia soul stickshift for like 1000 bucks. It was going to the auction but I couldn’t pass on a stickshift winter car.
It has been probably the single most reliable car I’ve ever bought. It’s going on 3 years now. Brakes, tires, and oil changes. Nothing else has broken. Not so much as a light bulb. Not only that, it’s so freaking tough. Ive plowed it into snow piles, I’ve jumped it, I’ve pushed dead lot cars in a parking lot with it, I have photo proof of hauling about 900 lbs of rocks in the back, and driving it out of the woods that way.
It’s a freaking Toyota Hilux with a hatchback.
I’m completely in love with it and I’ll never sell it.
Kia’s made some mistakes in the past that give me PTSD anytime I see a GDI badge, but dude. The 5 speed 2010 soul is a feral barn cat of a car.
I would find a way to buy this thing as-is if it went on sale tomorrow. I’m sure the production version will be fine, but not as lust-worthy as this one.
You could always build a model of one out LEGO and gunpla parts while you wait.
This reminds me a whole lot of my old VehiCross
My thoughts exactly! I’d rather have a Hyundai take on the Trooper, but this is definitely a neo Isuzu product stylistically.
Counter-point: this is a slightly less aggressive Cybertruck and absolutely should NOT be made lest if suffer the same fate.
This has the same great adventure vibes of the original Pontiac Aztek! (the concept, not the cost-cut minivan-chassis production version)
This is the new Scrambler for the Hollywood remake of Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.
…starring Kevin Sorbo
H/K is in such a weird place right now. Sales seem to be going well, maybe owing to the economic situation that has folks looking for cheaper brands. At the same time, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people (including me) saying “never again” following a decade of problems including cars that are easy to steal which led to ridiculous insurance rates, massive quantities of engine failures that led to long delays and backlogs at dealer service departments, often shady dealers, and tons of recalls. It’ll be a decade or more before many folks consider H/K again.
They both need to beat their dealers into line like Mazda did in the aughts.
Well, they are the fourth largest brand by market share in the US… so they are not exactly hurting here. They are also not losing market share either… so tales of hoards of people refusing to buy H/K seem to be way over-exaggerated.
It’s hilarious that this is a typo of the word you were pointing out the typo of. Especially since “reimages” is actually a word while “reimagnes” is not and spell-check catches it.
But yes, either way it’s nonsense.
It is in a press release for a concept car. Exactly what kind of sense are you expecting?
Wanted to check to see if anyone else saw it.
Leaving undisappointed
I’m getting Vehicross vibes from this, in a good way.
Beat me to it! I miss that rig.
I felt the same when I saw the images.
I also suspect, as others have pointed out, that this previews the styling of the next Kona (or its replacement), although it’s much more aggressive than what we’ll see in production (which is disappointing).
Love it or hate it, Hyundai is one of the few pushing the design envelope today. I like most of what they are doing across all their brands with the exception of that Telluride in todays autopian.
Ionic 5 still looks great years after it was introduced, the G90 looks as good as anything from Europe, and the coming N Vision 74, wow.
I do respect their game, yes. And I do hate this one. But, yeah, they are sending it.
The side profile sold me. It looks fun. Video gamey, but fun. And, in a total surprise to myself, I like a lot of what they have in the interior.
I giggled a bit that in the comment about reimage being a typo, reimagines also has a type. Currently, its “reimagnes”.
I also caught it and commented before reading your comment. And now I have to point out your typo in “reimagines also has a type.”
Lol I better go re-read my comment for typos. Glass houses or something.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That is freaking fantastic that I’m just as guilty.
Fabulous.
I’m going to claim “well I don’t have an editor”. Its meaningless, but thats what I’m saying.
Yeah, it’s appealingly SciFi and all, but TBH, I’d rather just have them bring the Inster to the states.
it’s a bit too tryhard and Cybertruck for my liking
My first reaction is that this is what the Cybertruck wanted to be, but failed miserably at being. I honestly think (exterior-wise) this actually works. I feel like this would fit perfectly in an alternate-universe lineup with the N 74 concept.
Not boxy enough, I like interior storage when using my limb risers in the real world. This does give a bit of a Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution vibe with less utility.
It might be a good actual car if they took this, pushed out the side panels and inch or two closer to the fender limits, and squared of the back to give some cargo capacity. The pushing out of the sides could even be from zero at the nose tapering to two inces per side at the tail.
Ah yes kids, let me tell you about the great polygon shortage of the 2020’s.
Due to environmental restrictions on polygon manufacturing, and restricted exports from China, the cost of polygon’s skyrocketed. In an effort to stabilize cost, automakers rationed their designers to use as low of a polygon count as possible, leading to what is known as the “8-bit era”.
just using up all those polygons left over from the 80s
Tesla cheats on the polygon shortage by having the rear quarters of the Cybertruck be rippled instead of actual planes. At least on the example that parks on my block every day.
And you though the Isuzu Vehicross was dumb.
I had looked around for Vehicross’ for sale before I bought a K5 Jimmy haha I still one day would love to have one of those goofy looking things.
na I like them a lot.
Ohnoyoudidn’t. The Vehicross was awesome. Someone find this man and slap him.
I immediately thought it was a VehiCrROSS made by a “gamer” company.
I test drove a new one in a previous life. It was weird. TBH, I’m a bit sorry I didn’t buy it though.
Weird is good.
Someone should put that on a T-shirt…