Hyundai Boulder 4x4 revealed by patent images 

A patent image lodged by Hyundai with India’s patent office has offered the clearest indication yet of how the brutalist Boulder off-road concept could look in production form. By extension, it also previews how the Korean car-maker’s long-awaited Ford Ranger rival might front up.

The Hyundai Boulder is a body-on-frame off-road SUV concept, shown at the 2026 New York motor show in April as a design study previewing the Korean brand’s first fully boxed ladder-frame platform. That architecture is confirmed to underpin a production midsize ute, as confirmed last week.

At the time the assumption was that a production version, if it happened at all, would be watered down. The patent image suggests otherwise.

The vehicle appears to retain the bluff bonnet, full-width front panel with small rectangular headlights and vertical LED signatures, boxed wheel arches, slab-sided doors and an upright, stubby tail with an externally mounted spare wheel.

The rounded upper A-pillars borrow from the Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler playbook, which is no accident given those two – along with the Toyota 4Runner and Land Rover Defender – are the vehicles a production Hyundai Boulder would be built to fight.

For Australian readers a very relevant detail is the front end. Hyundai has a long record of getting concept design language into showrooms broadly intact. If that holds, the nose in these patent drawings is a reasonable preview of what a Hyundai dual-cab would wear.

Hardware remains under wraps.

The Hyundai Boulder’s body-on-frame chassis is made from US-produced steel and Hyundai’s official messaging has pointed towards a new US-focused program rather than borrowing the Kia Tasman’s underpinnings, despite the obvious appeal of doing so.

The powertrain roster could stretch to a 245kW (330hp) 2.0-litre turbo-petrol hybrid, a 298kW (400hp) plug-in hybrid and full-electric versions for North America, with other markets potentially picking up the Tasman’s 154kW 2.2-litre turbo-diesel and eight-speed automatic.

Off-road hardware is expected to include a 4x4 layout with front and rear differential locks, low-range gearing, independent front suspension and a solid rear axle.

That reads as a genuine off-roader rather than a lifestyle exercise and Hyundai Motor Company Australia chief operating officer Gavin Donaldson has already told carsales the brand wants a differentiated product rather than another me-too dual-cab, nominating a hybrid or EREV powertrain as the likely headline act.

Hyundai has committed to more than 100 new models globally by 2030 and has publicly flagged body-on-frame vehicles as one of the ‘white space’ segments it intends to attack. The midsize ute is confirmed within that plan. A production Hyundai Boulder, for now, is not.

Australian showrooms are yet to be locked in for either, and Hyundai is not expected to reveal meaningful details until 2027. But if the patent drawings are what they appear to be, the styling argument has already been settled – and it is a long way from anything Hyundai currently sells here.