While the Creta has been setting the sales charts on fire in India, its Korean maker, Hyundai is working on another funky, compact SUV for North America, Europe and Oceania market. Touted as an adversary of the hip and successful Nissan Juke, the new compact SUV will be essentially be a production version of the Intrado Concept showcased at the 2014 Geneva show. The first ever spy images of the new SUV, slated for a launch by 2017, as a 2018 Model year car have just been taken by our friends at Motor1.
Based on the i20 platform, the new SUV wouldn’t be too large or capacious, but will have quirky styling and a fashionable attitude as its USPs. Designed to blend youthful styling with an outdoorsy attitude, the new Intrado concept based SUV will also boast some off-road capability. Being prepared for the US market, the car will also boast a long list of electronic driver aids.
Upon launch the new i20 based compact SUV will get a variety of petrol and diesel powerplants. Petrol power will be provided by a 1.0-litre T-GDi with about 120hp. Then there would be a 1.4-litre T-GDi petrol offering 140hp of power and 240 Nm of torque. Diesel power will be offered in the form of a 1.6-litre CRDi. Manual transmission will be taken care of by a 6-speed manual box, while auto options will be offered through a 6-speed automatic and a 7-speed dual-clutch auto. While the base variants will be FWD, there will be an AWD option with limited off-road capability for the top end variants.
The styling of the new SUV, though unclear owing to the heavy camouflage will be heavily inspired by the Intrado concept shown in this article. Expect the closer-to-production version to make its debut at one of the shows in North America in 2017. The possibility of a launch in India is bleak, though Hyundai might just want to offer it as a funkier, more compact and lesser priced crossover alternative to the Creta.
