The futuristically styled Hyundai Staria arrived in South Africa late in 2021. How well has it been received by buyers? Let’s take a look at local sales figures for 2022 thus far…

When the Hyundai Staria arrived in South Africa in November 2021 – just seven short months after its global reveal, as a replacement for the comparatively staidly styled H1 – it created quite a stir thanks to its futuristic design. So, how well has it been received by local buyers?

Well, we sifted through Naamsa’s sales documents and applied a little arithmetic to find out just how many units Hyundai Automotive SA has managed to sell over the first eight months of 2022.

Considering the sorts of global supply and production constraints facing virtually all automakers these days, the total is actually rather impressive. Yes, as many as 1 133 units of the Staria have been registered across South Africa, year to date. That translates to a monthly average of more than 140 units (though the best month thus far was July, when 187 examples were sold).

The overwhelming majority of Staria units sold locally came from the passenger-vehicle range – so, either the 9- or 11-seater derivatives launched initially or the 5-seater Multicab that joined the range in February 2022. According to our maths, the overall total includes just 24 units of the light-commercial Panel Van version, though this model arrived as recently as July 2022.

As a reminder, the 6-strong Staria line-up is currently priced from R599 900 (for the 3-seater Panel Van) through to R1 114 900 (for the flagship Luxury derivative). All models are powered by Hyundai’s familiar 2.2-litre, 4-cylinder turbodiesel engine, which here delivers 130 kW and 430 Nm to the front axle through an 8-speed automatic transmission.

How did the Hyundai Staria’s rivals perform?

Volkswagen registered 557 units of its Kombi in the first eight months of 2022.

Since Mercedes-Benz South Africa doesn’t report individual model sales figures to Naamsa, we unfortunately don’t know exactly how many units of the V-Class (nor the Vito) were sold in South Africa from the beginning of January to the end of August. We do, however, have sales figures for a few other bus-shaped rivals.

Here, we’ll concentrate on the passenger-vehicle segment, where Hyundai has registered 1 109 units of the Staria, year to date. The next best with around half that number is the Volkswagen Kombi (557 units), followed by the Kia Carnival (369 units).

Meanwhile, VW also managed to register 179 examples of its Caravelle, while Toyota sold 72 units of its Quantum bus (though there’s also a Panel Van version as well as the big-selling Hi-Ace and Ses’fikile models). The Opel Zafira Life, meanwhile, ended the eight-month reporting period on just 39 units. Curiously, Ford’s Tourneo Custom sales were all listed in the light-commercial vehicle segment (despite it being classed as a passenger vehicle), totalling 69 units.

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