Hyundai just rolled out the Boulder Concept at the New York Auto Show, and let’s not dance around it: this thing looks like a Ford Bronco that spent a semester abroad in Seoul. Boxy two-box silhouette, 37-inch mud-terrain tyres, a full-size spare hanging off the tailgate. Even the double-hinge tailgate feels like it was sketched with one eye on Dearborn’s homework.
And honestly? Good.
The Bronco proved that buyers wanted a rugged, squared-off alternative to the sea of soft crossovers drowning every car park from Bondi to Broadmeadow. Ford nailed the formula. Hyundai, to its credit, has looked at what works and built its own version on a brand-new body-on-frame platform, the company’s first.
That platform is the real story here. It will underpin a midsize pickup arriving by 2030, plus what will almost certainly be a production version of this Boulder. Hyundai is calling the design language “Art of Steel,” which launched at this same show.
Forget the exterior debate for a second. Inside, Hyundai has done something genuinely unexpected. There’s no traditional instrument cluster. Instead, vital driving information displays at the base of the windshield in a full-width head-up arrangement.
The dashboard itself uses four small square screens with physical controls rather than one enormous tablet. If that philosophy makes it to production, Hyundai will have leapfrogged half the industry in cabin usability while everyone else keeps bolting bigger iPads to the dash.
Hyundai has been telegraphing a body-on-frame truck for months. The Boulder just confirms the architecture exists. No powertrain details yet, but expect the platform to support electric, combustion, and hybrid options.
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The midsize pickup segment is crowded (Tacoma, Ranger, Colorado) but Hyundai has proven repeatedly that it can walk into an established segment and immediately make the incumbents uncomfortable. The Santa Cruz was a toe-in-the-water. This is the cannonball.
Hyundai isn’t pretending the Bronco comparison doesn’t exist. It’s betting that Australians (and Americans, and everyone else) would rather have more options that look this good than fewer. On that, they’re right.
