2014 Hyundai Santa FE Sport

The 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport has a lot going for it. This five-passenger crossover is sharply styled and offers plenty of standard and optional features. It also has a pleasantly roomy and quiet interior, and accelerates and handles well enough to satisfy most buyers' performance expectations. But considering how heated the competition is among small and midsize crossover SUVs for 2014, a vehicle almost has to be this good just to measure up to the pack. In reality, the Santa Fe Sport does more than just measure up: It's a bona fide standout. Introduced just last year, the Sport is the smaller sibling of the three-row, seven-passenger Santa Fe (covered in a separate review). The five-passenger Sport nixes the third row and measures 8.5 inches shorter bumper to bumper. As a result, the smaller Santa Fe is a bit more engaging to drive and navigates tighter confines with greater ease. Hyundai offers two engines here: a base 2.4-liter four-cylinder and a stronger, livelier turbocharged 2.0-liter. Despite being the smaller sibling, the Sport is still quite roomy and boasts comfortable seating for adults and enough luggage or cargo space to easily handle daily errands and family life. And in keeping with Hyundai's current tradition, the Santa Fe Sport offers some pretty appealing convenience and luxury features for pricing that's quite competitive. Topping it all off is Hyundai's generous warranty coverage. In addition, the 2014 Santa Fe Sport matches up in just about every area with top-ranked small crossover SUVs like the Ford Escape, Honda CR-V, Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV4. One of the few areas in which the Hyundai comes up short is fuel economy. Compared with the aforementioned competition, the Santa Fe Sport trails by 3-4 mpg in combined driving. But even with that caveat, we still wholeheartedly recommend the 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport for your crossover SUV short list.