The tug-of-war between engineering and design to build the Hyundai Palisade XRT Pro

Every car company, it seems, is looking to present its most versatile face in the form of dirt-ready vehicles. Even models that might not have been off-road appropriate in the past are toughening up to capitalize on the go-outdoors trend that has exploded in the last several years. Hyundai is no exception to this movement, launching progressively tougher versions of some of its vehicles. The Korean automaker even sponsored a team in the off-road Rebelle Rally competition, outfitting the Brute Squad team with a lifted version of its Santa Cruz, a compact SUV with a small truck bed. 

The newest iteration of Hyundai’s make-it-tougher phase has emerged in the form of the Palisade XRT Pro, a more rugged variant of Hyundai’s popular Palisade. This three-row SUV is one of the brand’s top sellers, and it’s even more versatile now that it’s tweaked for light off-roading. Equipped with a newly developed 3.5-liter V6 engine making 287 horsepower and up to 260 lb.-ft. of torque, the Palisade XRT Pro also includes all-terrain tires, an electronic limited-slip rear differential, and better approach and departure angles due to revised front and rear bumpers. 

In the process of creating the new Palisade, Hyundai’s designers and engineers had to agree on the shape and scale of the vehicle. The end result is a capable, handsome beast; however, some give and take was required to get there. 

Managing the inherent tension between engineering and design

Any new car starts with a design–bold strokes of a pen sketching out images of what the brand believes the vehicle can be. Designers are trained to stretch their imaginations, but they also understand the parameters of the automaker’s engineering and persona. Sometimes, the creative team gets to color way outside the lines to dream up a concept car, which may eventually morph into something that resembles it as a production car. 

From the design stage, the engineers and designers converge to figure out how to meet in a mutually agreeable place. The tension between the two departments may grow, but ultimately the winning party must be the car itself. Both parties are used to the push and pull, and it might be a little like a negotiation at an open market: The buyer offers $100, the seller asks for $150. The buyer offers $125 to meet in the middle. 

Soomin Choe is the exterior creative design manager for Hyundai Design Center North America. Over the course of his 35-year career sketching cars, he spent 13 years at Hyundai , and he knows the nature of the negotiation. 

“In order for us to distinguish the XRT Pro, we wanted it to have more aggressive lines,” Choe says. “We talked with the engineers about the production requirement materials, fabrications, and laws, which takes up about 80 percent of our design process. We fight for every single millimeter while we work with the design.” 

In some cases, the law has the final say on what the design will include.

“Every country has different laws and regulations that we must follow,” Choe explains. “For example, in the Korean market, automakers are required to add a lower bumper structure beam in the front for pedestrian law, a feature cars in the US don’t require.” 

Incorporating recovery hooks into the frame

One of the biggest points of friction between design and engineering was adding front and rear recovery hooks, a key feature to help pull the vehicle out of a sticky situation off the trail—or to allow the Palisade XRT Pro to assist another vehicle. The Palisade hadn’t included this feature in the past, so the design and engineering teams had to look carefully at the SUV to understand what made the most sense both aesthetically and physically. 

Unlike tow hooks, which are designed for steady movement, recovery hooks are intended for explicit off-road and emergency use. Adding recovery hooks to a unibody SUV like the Palisade is more difficult than it would be on a body-on-frame vehicle, like a Toyota Tacoma. Trucks like the Tacoma are built with two distinct and separate pieces: the body and a rectangular steel frame. 

Some SUVs are fortified with an aftermarket bumper frame that incorporates the recovery hooks, but that alters the overall function of the stock vehicle. In this case, the hooks are built in straight from the factory. Making such an amenity built-in was important to the entire team, to show that the Palisade XRT Pro wasn’t just posing for off-road photos; it is the real deal.

“In order to attach a recovery hook, it requires a lot of strength and the spaceframe is not usually capable of that,” Choe states. “But the engineers fought hard to find this position where we can attach this point and make it functional.” 

To achieve this level of functionality, the recovery hooks had to be able to support the full weight of the SUV. Engineers pinpointed a spot on the bumper frame and located the hooks there. In order to incorporate it into the lower grille design, they worked with the design team for adjustments that made sense for both sides of the team. 

In the end, Hyundai produced a new and improved version of the Palisade that does much more than grocery runs and trips to the soccer field. And with those recovery hooks along for the ride, the route just got a lot more interesting.