All-New Hyundai Tucson Is Almost Perfect, Believes a Virtual Artist, Only Gives It Minute Changes

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Photo: kelsonik / Instagram

The 2027 or 2028 Hyundai Tucson (NX5) was recently announced at home in South Korean as a design preview of the upcoming all-new generation – and owners of the current model won’t recognize anything about it.

Unlike many of the mainstream automakers and sometimes even exotic carmakers, the Hyundai and Kia siblings from South Korea have developed a tradition of completely redesigning a model when it moves to a new iteration – even if that nameplate is their best-selling model. That just happened with Hyundai and its top-selling Tucson compact crossover SUV, which comes with massive design changes inside and outside compared to its predecessor.

The new Hyundai Tucson, which most likely will arrive for the 2028 model year in America and for the 2027MY at home in South Korea, embraces a rugged and boxy look with a more upright profile that could bring fresh benefits to rear-seat occupants and the cargo space. However, maybe not everyone will appreciate the more rugged appearance, which makes it feel like Hyundai sent the Tucson to the gym on a hardcore training regime.

Hyundai also tweaked the dimensions, growing the new Tucson by 2.3 inches (60 millimeters) in length and adding 1.57 inches (40 millimeters) to the width, while the wheelbase is now 109.6 inches (2,785 millimeters). The lighting system features a massive full-width ‘H’ pattern both at the front and around the back, and there are also major changes inside the cabin.

Over there, we see the new Pleos Connect system that’s also featured in the new Grandeur and Avante (Elantra), with a big central screen that also has a row of physical controls underneath plus a slim digital instrument cluster sitting atop the dashboard rather than an integral part of it. There’s also cozy ambient lighting, and Hyundai hopes the new Tucson will be a hit with customers and fans.

It has already become a darling of the members of the imaginative guild of digital car content creators dwelling across the parallel universes of vehicular CGI, with Marouane Bembli, aka ‘thesketchmonkey’ on social media, comparing it to a rig “that looks ready for war” with the compact crossover SUV class rivals, especially the all-new Toyota RAV4.

Additionally, Nikita Chuicko, the virtual artist better known as "kelsonik" on social media, thinks that now is the right CGI time to work on the all-new Tucson but most likely thinks the new model is almost perfect because he doesn’t give us his usual array of enhancements like the CGI Shadow Line or a lowered suspension setup and aero improvements, and not even a choice of new aftermarket wheels.

Instead, the pixel master simply makes it even more elegant with a new CGI version dressed in silver and with a black roof to achieve the fashionable dual-tone look. So, what do you think of the all-new Hyundai Tucson – yay or nay?