Forget Ford Ranger Vs Toyota HiLux: New ute war looms as Hyundai Santa Cruz and Ford Maverick hybrid shift the balance of power in coupe-utility coup

For years, all eyes have been on the never-ending battle between the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger in Australia.

Dominating the sales charts since 2016, the ageing HiLux finally conceded defeat against a strongly reinvigorated Ranger last year, and likely won’t reclaim the top spot until the next-generation version finally arrives sometime from 2025.

But a new bruhaha, in a slightly different theatre of war, is brewing over the next few years as a slew of smaller, lighter, more-efficient and – most importantly – less expensive dual-cab utes land on our shores.

Announcing the coupe-utility coup, brought to you by Hyundai, Ford… and probably everybody else over time, even Honda!

All of these new wave of utes systematically abandon the heavy and bulky body-on-frame construction — used by the HiLux, Ranger, Isuzu D-Max, Mitsubishi Triton and the like — for monocoque construction from existing SUV platforms as a base.

This scenario is already playing out in pick-up truck obsessed North America right now, where the unexpected sales success of the Ford Maverick is spearheading a new, compact class of accessible and more-socially/ecologically responsible utes, and it seems set to spread to other markets around the world.

America moves and the world follows. Particularly Australian motorists.

Yet it is Hyundai that’s poised to be the first with one of these new-age dual-cab models in Australia, and possibly inside the next two years, with an evolution of its popular Santa Cruz series released Stateside back in 2021.

As revealed by CarsGuide back in May, the company informed its local dealer network at a conference of plans for a future version to launch in Australia. Timing is vague, but we hear from around 2026.

This is due to the second-gen Santa Cruz adding right-hand-drive (RHD) for the first time, and possibly further production capacity beyond what the factory in Alabama that is currently the sole global source of the series can supply.

Like the existing model, the next-gen Santa Cruz will be an extension of the hugely-popular Tucson medium-sized SUV range that is also built alongside it in the US (hence the supply bottleneck).

Australian dealers were even shown a new-model rollout slide, with one vehicle labelled ‘Tucson Ute’, suggesting that it may be marketed locally under a different name, or – at least – piggyback on the SUV’s established reputation in this country.

Importantly, Santa Cruz II is expected to finally adopt hybrid and/or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) electrification.

This would be no surprise, as demand for the hybrid version of its Maverick arch rival has far-exceeded initial forecasts, and remains one of the reasons why the Ford is the sales leader in this fledgling new segment in North America.

When asked about the next-gen Santa Cruz back in May, Hyundai Motor Company Australia General Manager of Corporate Affairs, Bill Thomas, declined to comment, except to say that nothing is ever off the table for our market.

“We look at every model that might be suitable,” he told CarsGuide.

But Hyundai won’t enjoy market exclusivity in Australia for very long, it seems, with one Ford source revealing that the Maverick will “definitely” become an international rather than an American-focused player moving forward.

This will most probably occur when the second-gen version surfaces by 2028, complete with RHD (that’s currently said to be under development) for destinations that might also include the United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand and Japan.

Based on the Escape architecture but sharing no visual connection with its midsized SUV sister, the existing Maverick’s meteoric rise continues to make headlines, with US sales up 80 per cent year-on-year over a bumper 2023.

Its appeal is universal, as consumers respond to the aforementioned hybrid availability, as well as its chunky, shrunken F-Series truck styling, low pricing (from under A$40,000), super-practical cabin and surprisingly large open-bed load configuration.

The not-so-compact dual cab is also cleverly marketed in a very un-SUV way, underlining Ford’s near-century experience in this field.

Following in the well-trodden path of the Ranger and F-150, an extensive choice of packages are offered, from fleet-baiting XL and luxury Lariat to the sporty Lobo and Tremor off-road grades, further bolstering the Mexican-made ute’s incredibly broad appeal.

Also in on the monocoque SUV-based dual-cab ute caper is Honda, which actually pioneered the segment way, way back in 2006 with the US-built Ridgeline and related to the Pilot SUV as well as the luxury MDX that was sold briefly in Australia at that time.

Another left-hand-only proposition for now, it is unlikely to go RHD any time soon, but the third-gen redesign that too is anticipated around 2026 might, as Honda also taps into the global potential of a hybrid ute.

The big difference between the Ridgeline and the others is that it is positioned and priced in the Ranger/HiLux territory in North America, meaning it would be more expensive to begin with compared to Santa Cruz and Maverick.

Finally, it has been long speculated that there are others with (mostly electrified) unibody compact utes in the pipeline, including Rivian, BYD, Nissan and Renault via its Romanian value-brand Dacia.

That all said, it is not as if Australians are strangers to the concept of light, affordable utes. They’re part of the national fabric.

The world’s first coupe-utility was built in Melbourne in 1934 by Ford Australia (pipping a pre-Holden-era General Motors by a few months), creating a lineage that was defined by the first Holden ute in 1951 (50-2106 series), and then Ford’s XK Falcon ute a decade later, and culminated in the final VF II Commodore ute of 2017.

Once Australian vehicle manufacturing ceased, buyers simply moved wholesale to the HiLux, Ranger and myriad other one-tonners, but it seems that the ute is evolving once again.

Before this decade is over, the top spot may even be duked out between Santa Cruz and Maverick.