2001 Hyundai Santa Fe

Every major automaker is in the sport utility game, trying to squeeze out their share of the market by offering all kinds of variations on the theme - compacts, luxury, mini-RVs, if you will, rugged road warriors, and so forth. Hyundai has entered the fray in convincing fashion with its Santa Fe model. This project vehicle from Today's SUV magazine has undergone quite a transformation since it came off the manufacturer's production line. It went from being a fine but stock sport ute to an uptown car audio ride. Proof of that was how it was received when it was shown at the SEMA show and CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, where onlookers were given quite an aural and visual treat. The Hyundai, a vehicle that many of them had only seen in television ads and magazine articles, made a great impression, wowing attendees of the shows, given its novelty as a new car and its slick sound system punching out clear, crisp music.

Several months before these shows, Today's SUV put its project vehicle into the trusted hands of Brian Bennett at Auto Sound Engineering in Westlake Village, California, to perform these installations. Brian used a combination of Scosche connections and Power Acoustik audio and video components throughout the vehicle.

The Santa Fe's factory stereo was replaced with a Power Acoustik head unit that immediately enhanced the look of the dash. This unit provides AM/FM stereo, with 18 FM and 12 AM presets, and has a drop-down face that reveals the compact disc slot. Below the Santa Fe's head unit is the equalizer. This component is a half-din pre-amp EQ with a rotary input/output control. Its features include night illumination, making "sound checks" a little easier; a subwoofer crossover that is variable from 30 to 250 Hz; and subwoofer, master, and fader controls. This unit can be used to optimize the sound of the stereo, the CD player, and television or DVD signals.

While the driver keeps her eyes on the road, the front-seat passenger can have an eyeful of the video options installed in the Hyundai. The 7-inch high-resolution TFT-LCD monitor uses a credit-card size remote control and has on-screen display and options. It is said to be the world's thinnest monitor, at 5/8 of an inch thick. Passengers in the second row have the use of another 7-inch monitor, for which Brian designed and installed a custom console that was mounted flush into the headliner. It combines a high-resolution wide view angle with low power consumption, making it a logical choice if a driver does not plan on having another source of power besides that of the standard vehicle battery. A third 7-inch monitor was installed in the cargo area, for show-stopping vivid color. Each of the monitors has its own switcher, which allows each to view a different power source at the same time. Each row of passengers can choose what they want to watch.