Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Calligraphy Hire Sydney: Review, Specs and What It Is Really Like

The fifth-generation Santa Fe traded its rounded shape for something close to a box, and the Calligraphy six-seat version is the one that turns that box into a reason to book. Two separate chairs in the middle row, a walk-through to the back, a hybrid drivetrain that stays quiet in traffic and a cabin trimmed better than the badge suggests. It is confirmed by request rather than parked and waiting, so send your dates and we will tell you straight whether one can be in your driveway.

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Specifications

Read that table from the bottom up. The seat count and the layout are the reason the car
exists, the all-wheel drive is the reason it suits a wet Sydney winter, and the 0-100 time is
there so nobody books it expecting something it is not.

What It Is Actually Like in Sydney

Two chairs in the middle instead of a bench

The standard Santa Fe is a seven-seater with a three-person bench across the middle. The
six-seat Calligraphy replaces that bench with two individual chairs, each with its own armrests,
and leaves a clear channel between them through to the third row. That single change decides
how the car gets used. Nobody in the middle row is sharing a seatbelt buckle with a sibling, the
person in the back does not need anyone in front to climb out first, and a child seat on one
chair leaves the path to the third row open. On a two-hour run up the M1 to the Hunter or down
the Princes Highway to Kiama, the middle row is where the adults want to sit, which is not a
sentence you can write about most seven-seat SUVs.

The third row is full-size for teenagers and short-haul for adults. Headroom is better than
the shape of most rivals allows, because the roofline stays flat almost to the tailgate, and
legroom depends on how far back the middle chairs are set. Six adults for a wedding transfer
across town is fine. Six adults for a day trip is fine if the two tallest take the middle.

The walk-through earns its keep at the kerb as much as on the road. Loading at a Circular
Quay drop-off zone or outside a hotel in the CBD, the third-row passengers step in through the
middle without the side doors needing to swing wide or the second row folding forward. It is a
small thing that removes a familiar shuffle, and it is the reason the six-seat layout is the
one worth asking for over the seven.

The hybrid is there for quiet, not for pace

A 1.6-litre turbo petrol engine with an electric motor sitting between it and a conventional
six-speed automatic is not a recipe for speed, and the car does not pretend otherwise. What it
does is pull away from the lights on the motor alone, creep through a school pick-up queue in near
silence, and hold 110km/h on the motorway with the engine barely audible. The combined 172kW and
367Nm are enough to keep a full car moving up the climb out of Berowra without dropping two gears
and shouting about it. Overtaking on a two-lane road needs planning, the way it does in any family
car of this weight.

Fuel consumption is the practical benefit. Loaded and in mixed Sydney traffic it uses roughly
what a mid-size hatchback would, and over a week that includes a couple of long motorway legs the
gap against a petrol-only seven-seater is worth a tank. It takes regular unleaded and there is no
charging to think about, because the battery looks after itself and is never plugged in.

The handover between motor and engine is the part hybrids often get wrong, and this one gets
it mostly right. The petrol engine joins in without a lurch, and because the transmission is a
conventional automatic rather than a continuously variable unit there is none of the droning
that puts people off other hybrids. The one habit worth knowing is that it prefers a smooth
right foot. Ask for full power from a standstill and there is a beat before everything arrives.
Drive it the way its passengers would like to be driven and it is seamless.

The shape is a feature

Hyundai squared the Santa Fe off on purpose. The bonnet is flat, the roof is flat, the tailgate
is nearly vertical, and the result is a car you can see the corners of from the driver's seat.
That matters more than it sounds in a Westfield car park or on the narrow streets behind Bondi
Junction. It also means the boot opening is tall and square, so a pram goes in upright and a set of
golf clubs goes in flat. The roof rails are standard on the Calligraphy and take a real load, which
opens up a roof box or a pair of bikes for a South Coast week.

The twin sunroof runs over both the front seats and the middle row. With the blinds open the
cabin feels a size larger than it is, and the two people in the captain's chairs get the sky
rather than a headlining. On the run out to Palm Beach that is the seat everyone asks for.

Calligraphy is the trim that makes it worth hiring

Lower Santa Fe trims are sensible family cars and nothing more. The Calligraphy is the one with
Nappa leather on every seat, ventilated front chairs for a Sydney summer, a head-up display, the
wide twin-screen dash and a sound system that fills a cabin this size properly. It is the version
that reads as a premium car from the inside, which is the point of hiring one for a week with the
wider family rather than borrowing something older. It is also the trim the six-seat layout comes
with, so the two decisions arrive together.

Things You Should Know

It is not quick and nothing about it wants to be

Nine and a half seconds to 100km/h is honest family-car pace. Merging onto the M2 from a short
ramp takes a firm right foot, and the six-speed automatic occasionally hesitates when you ask for
everything at once. The car is calm rather than fast. If a quick six-seater is the brief, the
electric alternatives are in a different league on pace, and we would rather say that here than
have you expect something the car was never built to be.

All-wheel drive is for wet roads and gravel, not for the beach

The hybrid drives all four wheels, which is a real advantage on a wet Bells Line of Road or the
unsealed drive into a Hunter Valley cellar door. It is not a four-wheel drive in the Defender
sense. There is no low range, the ground clearance is that of a road car, and the tyres are road
tyres. Sand, river crossings and fire trails are not what it is for, and the hire terms say the
same. Treat the all-wheel drive as insurance against a wet Wakehurst Parkway rather than an
invitation.

Six up, the boot is the trade

With all six seats in use, the space behind the third row takes soft overnight bags and a
couple of backpacks. It does not take six hard suitcases. Fold the third row and the boot becomes
very large, which is how most groups of four or five will run it, with the sixth seat kept for the
day it is needed. If the plan is six adults with a week's luggage, tell us and we will say plainly
whether the Kia Carnival is the better booking, because for that exact load it usually is.

As a rough guide to what goes where with all six seats occupied:

• Behind the third row: four soft weekend bags, or a folded pram and two backpacks.
• On the roof rails: a roof box or two bikes, which is where a week's luggage for six ends up.
• Between the captain's chairs: nothing bulky, because that channel is the third-row exit.
• With the third row folded: two large suitcases, a pram and everything else, with room over.

Who Books This Car

Families with grandparents along, where the middle row matters as much as the back. Two couples
with children who want one car for a Blue Mountains weekend rather than a convoy. Wedding parties
who need to move six people between the ceremony and the reception in something that photographs
well and does not read as an airport shuttle. Visitors who want a week-long Sydney base with room
for everyone and no fuel anxiety.

It also suits the trip where the passengers matter more than the driver: an older relative who
needs the higher seat and the armrests, a friend recovering from surgery, anyone for whom a low
bench in the middle of a people mover is the wrong answer. The captain's chairs sit at a height
that is easy to get into and out of, and the flat floor between them means nobody has to step
over anything.

It is priced from $245 a day, which puts it under the Carnival and well under the Defender in
the Lifestyle tier. Longer hires taper, and a week with six people in it costs less per head than
almost any other way of moving that many people around Sydney in comfort.

The car is confirmed by request. Send your dates and the number of people, we check, and we tell
you yes or no before anything is charged. If the answer is no, we say so and offer the nearest car
in the tier rather than leaving you to find out at the door.