Hyundai Palisade

The Hyundai Palisade 4WD Elite 7 seater is the heavy hitter in the Hyundai stable. It's the big daddy. The el Mano and it is all SUV.

As you may have guessed from the name, it is an all wheel drive flavour. It's powered by a 2.2l turbo diesel, the best motor I think the group has ever produced with dead in the middle of the appropriate figure range for a large SUV of 142kW and 440Nm of torque punching out of the engine bay.

Mated to an 8 speed auto and flappy paddles, the power unit feels brisker than the numbers suggest with an initial immediate throttle response that lesser motors just cannot deliver with their turbos taking time to spin up. This turbo though is one that is at full attention all the time and that means almost instantaneous response from the torque on hand.

I have to add that it has been a while since I have had a gearbox as smooth as this, and yes, these days they are ALL smooth which makes comparisons about as useful as something that's not very useful to begin with.

That said, the degrees of separation between auto boxes, whilst they may be finer and less consequential as a result are nonetheless worthy of an attempt. Perhaps I might be clearer in my efforts if I were to say that the gearbox is noticeably absent from the process of driving the Palisade. I didn't notice it. Which gear is it in? What's the change down feel like? Change up? Under load?

Didn't notice. Don't care. It's all... just.... not there. It's all the more not noticeable in that the ride on the Palisade is unbelievably comfortable. If I didn't know better I'd 'blindfolded' call it as air suspension. It isn't but the way it sucks up all the niggles on our roads these days is a thing of wondrous rapture to behold. You may even be tempted to find additional challenges just to see how the Palisade effortlessly flattens them out. Sure, there is some body roll if you're hurrying along down the road in the vehicle but then you're an idiot and you need to get into a more appropriate vehicle to satiate your need for track day speed and thrills.

Speaking of getting into things though, climbing into the Palisade the electric seat moves forward for the driver. It does so because when you get out it moves back to make egress that fraction easier for you. And this really does seem to be the primary ethos around everything in the car: making your life just that little bit easier and doing it with the touch of class that is 'just so'. Satisfying is one way of putting it. Luxurious perhaps is another word for it.

Personally I found it, well, ermm, luxuriously satisfying?

That puts a smile on my face. The fact that everything works immediately as it should, that everything you use in the car day to day is taken care of without you having to think or lift a finger more than you absolutely have to means that you're in very real danger of falling in love with a hunk of metal that sneaks up on you and you notice all the more when it's gone.

There are so many standouts on the Palisade that it's hard to know where to begin. The features list is extensive but what makes them different is how these features work. Take adaptive cruise control for example. I have driven cars where it takes a push of a level, a pull of another level, several buttons and finally engagement of cruise control with a million other things that I don't want also turned on. In the Palisade you push one button on the steering wheel and it's done. Effortless.

Heated and vented seats upfront. Heated and vented seats in the first passenger row. I had the 7 seater option (as opposed to the 8) with two 'captain's chairs' in the first row and more conventional bench seats for the rear 3 in full people moving mode. The second row seats are every bit as comfy as the front row and whilst they stop short of being fully electric the cleverness that is the Palisade extends to them is sensibly applied. They've added easy access to the rear and egress from the rear being also kept simple.

Try it out on your test drive.

Because you will want a test drive.

The rear seats are also roomy and the closest thing to accommodating full size adults that I have seen in a 7 seater SUV. From the outside the Palisade doesn't look as big as it is on the inside.

Spoiler alert. I did fall for the obvious comparison but as it happens, it's not as obvious as it obviously appears to be - and there is more coming up on that shortly.

I think the looks are mature, understated and I am even going to use the word 'refined' here for a Korean car (past attempts are history happily) in comparison to perhaps some more expensive competition from differing corners of the globe. And I quite like that personally - climbing into a Palisade is never going to engender you into the realm of the something unprintable waving contests on the road, but it is the sort of car that you approach happily. It is the sort of car you get out of happy, and it is the sort of car that you know is going to keep you happy when you look back at it.

It lacks for nothing and at the asking price of R1.122M for a luxury SUV the Palisade has to be, without doubt, on everyone's list. Deeply impressive.

Did I add fuel consumption as tested was 8.3l/100? I didn't. I just did! That's impressively good, to add a cherry on the top.