With the big debut days just away, Hyundai muddies the waters about what it has finally created.

WE’D be comfortable calling it a utility … but Hyundai is insisting its long-awaited Santa Cruz traydeck is something else.

 When pressed on what that makes it, though, they seem lost for words.

So goes the latest news in respect to a model that, after a remarkably long development process – remember, the concept was unveiled in Los Angeles six years ago – now seems close to entering production.

We’ll know a lot more later this week; Hyundai plans on Thursday to release a wealth of detail about its unibodied trucklet, including what markets will take it and when.

Will that include New Zealand? The brand’s distributor has sporadically expressed interest, but never outright said it’s in the queue.

Potentially it might be, given that information out of Hyundai North America, which has taken the lead on this project, suggests the vehicle is based on the latest Tucson, which is now coming into this market. 

Of course, that relationship only becomes meaningful if Santa Cruz is also built in left-hand-drive.

Anyway, ahead of the big reveal, Hyundai has released not only some images but also a video from its design studio in California talking about the new model. 

As you can see, the production has Brad Arnold, the design manager of Hyundai North America, stating it’s “not a truck” but instead is “… a Santa Cruz."

That proposition has gone down interestingly in the US, with leading website Autoblog summing up the situation well by commenting that, if it’s not what it appears to be, what does it become? Suggests the site: “So, um, it's a city? A skateboard brand? A school whose mascot is the banana slug?”

Turns out, Hyundai is striving to enforce this model is especially designed to fit into an environment a lot of outdoorsy utes sold in NZ also find themselves coping with. The city.

"It's meant to thrive in dense urban environments, and the open outdoors," Arnold states.

So it’s soft? Well, maybe. As Autoblog says, it’s based on the Tucson and no-one will confuse that model as being a hard-out off-roader, either.