Hyundai Santa Fe is Women’s Worldwide Car of the Year 2025 - wins too for Porsche, Kia and more

The Hyundai Santa Fe is the Women’s Worldwide Car of the Year 2025, beating competition from the Kia EV3, MINI Cooper and more.

Hyundai has always done good business with the Santa Fe – its largest SUV in the UK – with its ease of use, friendly, rounded looks and plenty of space for all a family transport needs.

But getting on for two years ago we got a new Santa Fe revealed, and it was quite a bold makeover.

Gone were the rounded, friendly looks to be replaced by a big, bold, boxy look – almost like a modern Hyundai take on the much-missed Land Rover Discovery 4 – complete with longer wheelbase for more room, angular wheelarches, shorter front overhang, big tailgate and 21″ alloys.

Despite the reveal in 2023, it was only in April last year the new Santa Fe went on sale in the UK, and has now grabbed a gong as Women’s Worldwide Car of the Year 2025.

It’s a well-deserved award, even more so because – unlike almost every other COTY gong these days – the Santa Fe is an ICE car and much more in tune with real buyers needs.

Marta Garcia, Executive President of WWCOTY, said:

Choosing the World’s Best Car is a task of great responsibility. It must take into account the particularities of each market, the type of driving done, purchasing power, orography, consumer preferences… The winning car has to meet all these needs, satisfying drivers around the world.

Not only was the Santa Fe an ICE winner, but there were also ICE models in the category winners too (list below). A properly pragmatic bunch of awards.