The exterior looks like a sculptured piece of artwork. And like most styling impressions, it’s either instant hate or immediate love. That’s the beauty of Hyundai Santa Fe: a passion provoker. Beyond the body panel contours is a shapely technical accomplishment via the fulltime 4WD (front wheel drive is also offered). Fulltime 4WD is an automatic, intuitive system that delivers 60 percent of power to front wheels/40 percent to rear wheels as road terrain commands. No buttons. No levers. No stopping to change the set-up. The fulltime 4WD system was designed by Steyr-Puch, and serves as quite a compliment to Hyundai’s first sport utility vehicle designed, engineered and developed by the South Korean automaker for the North American market.

Santa Fe, built on a revised Sonata mid-size car platform, is powered by a 2.4-liter inline 4-cylinder producing 149 horsepower, or an all-aluminum, 24-valve V6 producing 181 horsepower. Four-cylinder engine is mated to a five-speed manual transmission, while the V6 mates to Hyundai’s Shiftronic automatic transmission. Fuel mpg estimates for the V6-powered Santa Fe are 19 city and 23 highway. Standard features on the top-end LX edition (base and GLS versions also offered) include roof rack, remote keyless entry with alarm, first aid kit, cargo cover and cargo net, cruise control, air conditioning, heated power mirrors, rear and front seat heater ducts, and AM/FM/CD stereo cassette with six speakers. Base price of the 2001 Santa Fe 4WD LX is $21,999.
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