Facelift Hyundai Alcazar coming to South Africa not as Grand Creta

Hyundai has confirmed it will retire the Grand Creta moniker for the seven-seat sibling of the Creta in favour of its Indian designation, Alcazar, in 2025.

Fresh start

Marketed as the curiously titled Alcazar since 2021, Hyundai South Africa’s opting for the Grand Creta name 12 months later came as a way of aligning the seven-seater with the five-seat Creta that still originated from the same plant in Chennai at the time.

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Sourced since the middle of 2022 from the Cikarang facility in Indonesia, the move from Grand Creta to Alcazar has been touted as representing a fresh start rather than continuing to leverage off of the model it now no longer has relations with in naming despite still sharing the same platform.

“Grand Creta is being phased-out in South Africa and hopefully we will see Alcazar launch early next year,” Hyundai South Africa CEO, Gideon Jansen van Rensburg, told The Citizen on the sidelines of the Exter launch in Cape Town this week.

“We are enjoining a great relationship with Korean counterparts and they pulling out all the stops to position our vehicles competitively”.

While set to remain front-wheel-drive, the South African Alcazar will retain the seven-seat layout and do without the optional six available in some derivatives in India.

Petrol or diesel again but no T-GDI

In addition, the only carryover from the Grand Creta will be the choice of powerplants consisting of the 1.5-litre turbodiesel and normally aspirated 2.0-litre petrol.

According to Hyundai’s Sales and Operation Director, Stanley Anderson, the decision to retain the mentioned powerplants will be to the benefit of costs as the inclusion of the Indian-market 1.5 T-GDI engine would have made the petrol Alcazar more expensive than wanted.

It, therefore, means that unlike in India where the 1.5 T-GDI develops 118kW/253Nm, South Africa will hold on to the mentioned 2.0-litre that produces 117kW/191Nm.

At the same time, the T-GDI’s seven-speed dual-clutch transmission would have had a further bearing on the final price despite the availability of a six-speed manual on lower-spec versions.

As it stands, the South African-spec petrol Alcazar will seemingly keep both the existing six-speed manual and six-speed automatic transmissions, while the diesel, which develops 84kW/250Nm in the Grand Creta, will retain the latter as its only option.

On the spec side

While final specification is still unknown, expectations are that the Alcazar could feature the same items as the Indian variant, namely the dual 10.25-inch infotainment system and instrument cluster, the new digital climate control panel, redesigned dashboard, ambient lighting, heated and ventilated seats, and the eight-speaker Bose sound system.

More later

Whereas pricing for the Grand Creta currently ranges from R520 500 to R644 500, a noticeable hike for the Alcazar is expected of possibly around the R550 000 mark for the base model.

As mentioned though, this is purely speculative and will only become official, along with final specification, either towards the end of the year or with the commencing of sales in 2025.

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