The U.S.) is beginning to gain its place in the daily lives of Korean people. Several copies rolling around the country and one of them can be seen in these images. At this moment, prices have not yet been officially announced.

With 4,689 mm long (184.6 in), 1,880 mm width (74 in), 1.679 height (66.1 in) and 2.700 mm in wheelbase (106.3 in), the 2012 Santa Fe will offer more comfort, quality and interior space for its five occupants. Not to mention the new variant with seven seats, which not only larger in size, will end the career of Veracruz. 

The prediction of  Hyundai for 2012 is selling 150,000 around the world, only 40,000 being at home. There, the Santa Fe has both e-VGT 2.2-liter with 200 hp with 44.5 Nm. The average consumption is 17.5 km/l in the 2.0 CRDi 2WD with manual transmission and 13.2 km/l in the most powerful engine with 4WD and automatic transmission. 

With more sophisticated and aggressive style, the 2012 Hyundai Santa Fe offers several items of comfort and safety, such as seven airbags, TCS, ESP, ABS, Hill Holder, electronic parking brake, Auto Hold, Park Assist, media center with 8″ inch LCD touchscreen with BlueLink, Hi-Pass, smart browser, among others.

The Hyundai Veloster has been a bit polarizing since it went on sale last year. And the debate could get more animated if the Korean company does what we think it’s thinking about doing.

At a recent gathering of reporters and Hyundai executives in Ann Arbor, MI, where the annual Rolling Sculpture Car Show takes place every summer, Autoblog asked Hyundai Motor America chief John Krafcik what he planned to bring this year (the college town is also home to Hyundai America Technical Center). Last year, they showed off the new Veloster. 

Redone Santa Fe? Neither seems appropriate for the tone of the event. So, we threw this out: “How about chopping the top off the Veloster and see the reaction?”  Krafcik and PR man Jim Trainor started trying to make poker faces, indicating to us that we may well have stumbled on to a future project, Rolling Sculpture or no. But we aren’t sure. 

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Some thought the Veloster was an answer to a question that nobody had been asking, but the unique coupe is proving to be a great sales and image success for Hyundai. Krafcik has shown a great instinct for design and engineering the Genesis Coupe. A former product development executive at Ford, it’s hard to think he would not be the current product development chief in Dearborn had he stayed, and not been scooped up by Hyundai a decade ago. 

Hyundai’s sales have been supply constrained on many of its models, including the Veloster. Given a finite supply of Veloster models that it can source from Korea, John Krafcik plans to emphasize production of the upcoming Turbo model. That strikes us as a smart move. 

Hyundai Motor said on Thursday it aimed to sell 152,000 revamped sleek-looking Santa Fe sport utility vehicles globally this year, as it seeks to hold off a surge from high-end foreign brands at home. 

Santa Fe is Hyundai’s sole model to be launched globally this year and comes as its domestic car sales are increasingly under pressure after Seoul signed free trade agreements with Europe and the South Korea’s formerly sheltered market. 

Sales of imported cars topped 10 percent of the market for the first time in January this year, according to industry data, versus less than 1 percent in 2000. Hyundai, the world’s No.5 auto group along with affiliate Kia Motors, said in a statement it was targeting sales of 385,000 Santa Fes in 2013. 

“We are confident about positioning Santa Fe as premium model both at home and in the overseas markets,” Hyundai chief executive Kim Choong-ho told reporters after the company unveiled the new-look model. “It boasts very competitive fuel mileage of 17 km per litre and a bold design.” 

The third generation of Santa Fe is the first upgrade in seven years and completes Hyundai’s attempt to introduce a new design dubbed “fluidic sculpture” to its extensive product lineups for a distinctive Hyundai look, a breakaway from the past’s quiet and bland design. 

The design concept, which features arched lines from the front-centre of the car to the end, was first introduced to its flagship Azera large-sized sedan. 

The design improvements are cited as one of the key contributors to increased sales, but critics say Hyundai’s aggressive design push has split customers and risks driving away as many as it attracts — not a recipe for big volume sales.

The new Santa Fe, which Hyundai says will be in competition with Audi’s Q5 model, is scheduled to launch in June in China in October. Hyundai said pre-orders for the model have topped 15,000 in South Korea. It aims to sell 42,000 domestically and 110,000 in the overseas market this year.

“High household debt and a slump in the real estate market could depress overall car demand in the domestic market but we hope the overall economic conditions will improve from May,” Kim said. Shares in Hyundai fell 0.9 percent as of 0310 GMT, versus a 0.1 percent drop in the broader market.

Well this time the meet was a little different than the other ones. Not only because we did it again at the Southwest Kia Mesquite (SWKM) dealer but also because we got rain out thanks to the crazy Texas weather.

We officially had the meet planned for March, but as I was saying earlier the Texas weather is really hard to predict, because for the whole week we had a perfect weather with 70F but all the sudden the weather changed and we were having some thunderstorms coming, for that reason we moved the meet to April 7th.

As crazy Texas weather is, we also had a chance of rain for that same Saturday but only a small one with 20% but we still decided to go with the meet, rain or shine!! To our like and for some others dislike we had a very clear and sunny day with temperatures hitting the 80F so some of us got a little sunburn or a complete sunburn like Duncan and Jackson

This meet was a little different than the other, because thanks to Joe Gonzales from SWKM he decided to make an exclusive Kia car show for the Dallas/Fort Worth(DFW) Streetkiaz crew. We also had 2 members outside DFW area, like Jonny from the state of Oklahoma and Greg from San Antonio city.

For this show we had a good diversity of Kia models such as Rio, Spectra, Soul, Forte, Koup and Optima. All showing their best mods representing the brand and Streetkiaz group proudly.

Later that afternoon the employees from the dealer, such as technicians, sales person and even couple customers so it was fair and square decision for all the Kias that came for the show and here we have the winners of the shows!!

Jonny took 1st place Best of show with his 2006 Kia Spectra

Ozzie took 2nd place Best of show with his 2010 Kia Soul

Jackson took Best stock modified with his 2007 Kia Spectra

But don’t think everyone went home empty handed, SWKM gave some freebies too. Everyone received a Kia Bag, Kia t-shirt with ur car model name on it, streetkiaz patch, and also a hamster. After enjoying eating some pizza thanks to SWKM we decided to take some rolling shots with almost all the Kias that show up that day and I will say they came out really awesome!!!

I would like to thank Joe from SWKM for letting us again have our meets at the dealer and of course giving us those trophies and to everyone who came for the show to not only represent your Kia but as well as Streetkiaz.

Don’t forget to take a look to the complete Gallery, photos were taken by Jackson Ralston from twelve.9.four…. and Jordan Sanders.