New And Notable Outdoors Gear: April 3

Insights into the Hyundai Boulder concept you won’t read elsewhere, plus a meditation on knife sheaths, handles, and blade size

Pickup trucks are the most popular vehicles on American roads that actually serve any sort of objective purpose. But most car journalists treat them like a distasteful afterthought, and struggle to find the fucks necessary to give you meaningful coverage of them. Which is why no major outlets were able to bring you the two most obvious observations possible about this new Hyundai Boulder, which debuted this week at the New York Auto Show.

Big Monkeys

I think it was incredibly generous of The Rock to loan his 2004 Ford Bronco concept to Hyundai so they could make a big to-do about announcing their plan to enter the body-on-frame market. He even let them peel off the blue ovals and replace them with silver oval Hyundai badges!

The point here appears to be that the Korean automaker wanted to announce its plan to make a mid-size pickup, and possibly a Jeep Wrangler/Ford Bronco rival based on such, but just rolling out a rebadged Kia Tasman wouldn’t have gotten many headlines, so they did this instead.

No word on how much value this 2004 Ford Bronco Concept will have lost to the wide body kit and grumper Hyundai bolted to it, but I’m sure a zookeeper as talented as Dwayne Johnson won’t need to sell too many vials of gorilla sperm to make up the loss.

Just like the production Ford Bronco looked nothing like this 2004 Ford Bronco concept when it finally debuted 16 years later, it’s unlikely the Kia Tasman will look anything like this 2004 Ford Bronco concept either.

Believe it or not, but Hyundai and Kia aren’t actually the same company, rather they’re sister brands that exist under the same corporate umbrella. That means they share platforms, even though they compete in similar segments. Kia is a little more value focussed, while Hyundai is a little more mid-tier? I won’t lie, even I get confused.

So it’s extremely unlikely that Kia developed a new mid-size body-on-frame platform all on its own, with no plans to share it more broadly across multiple trucks and SUVs that will exist with both brands’ badges on their hoods.

Kia just launched the production Tasman pickup for hard use in austere conditions outside the US. It’s…not nice to look at, something Hyundai will almost certainly fix when they reskin it for the American market.

And the first product on that new platform is the Kia Tasman pickup, which is earning strong reviews in Australasia for its utility, if not its looks. There, it competes with the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux, offering payload capacities of over 2,500 pounds in some configurations, and the simple, robust powertrains necessary to meet that market’s demands for tool vehicles they can use in austere conditions.

While that number may sound scarcely believable when compared to America’s luxury-oriented trucks (the best selling mid-size truck here is the Tacoma, which can’t safely carry four American-sized adults), it’s actually in-line with what utility trims of the Ranger can carry in that market. Bringing that truck to the US involved fitting lighter springs and more compliant dampers, which brought its max payload down to about 1,900 pounds (5th gen, short cab, 2WD).

Another relevant data point tethered to actual reality comes from The Drive’s Byron Hurd, who reports that Hyundai sees an opportunity to differentiate itself in the mid-size pickup segment by offering slightly more interior space.

That’s again in-line with the Kia Tasman, which features a more upright, squared-off cab than the Hilux or Ranger, which facilitates slightly more shoulder and leg room.

Will a Hyundai Taco rival be this ugly? Doubtful. I’d picture something that shared the hard points of the Tasman’s rough shape, but which adopts a front clip and headlight graphic more akin to the 2004 Bronco Concept seen here.

Beyond that, we’re left with speculation. The Tasman uses the standard independent front-suspension and live axle with leaf spring arrangement, and in Australasia pairs a 2.2-liter diesel with an 8-speed auto. So far, so normal. I’d expect Hyundai to keep the rest of the translation conventional, and use its 2.5-liter turbocharged gas motor on this side of the Pacific. As used in the Santa Fe and Santa Cruz, that delivers around 280 horsepower and 311 lb-ft, about the same as other mid-size trucks.

If Hyundai can deliver such a truck, at a competitive price point, they’ll have a winner.

Is there an opportunity to do anything different or new? We’re talking about a conservative automaker entering a conservative segment for the first time, so I doubt it. About the whackiest move I could see them making is offering the Palisade’s new 2.5-liter turbo-hybrid powertrain as an option, which takes performance up to 329 horsepower and 339 lb-ft, but which will also add cost while reducing payload.

Will Hyundai also offer some sort of short wheelbase Wrangler/Bronco rival? If they’re serious about entering America’s truck market, then trying to position a cute little soft top as a halo vehicle is the conventional playbook. But how many sales can that segment really support, especially in a post Iran war energy environment? I’d much rather see a fixed-roof, body-on-frame 4Runner rival. Hyundai’s opportunity there is to offer a vehicle drivers can actually see out of, paired with a payload high enough to safely take an American family on a camping trip. Offer that at a price point lower than the 4Runner’s ridiculous $70,000 sticker, and the Koreans could steal the mid-size SUV segment away from both Toyota, and the unibody jokes that Jeep is saddled with.

A (Good) Formula For “Survival” Knives

Casting broad outdoor utility as “survival” probably helps sell stuff to people who don’t really spend much time outdoors, but likely also ends up limiting the time people spend outdoors by presenting such as some scary battle against nature.

With that out of the way, a robust fixed-blade knife that’s large enough to process firewood and small enough to carry offers outdoors folks a practical, multi-purpose tool.

Enter this new Redington from Giant Mouse. They told me about it a couple weeks ago and it went on-sale yesterday. I had them send one over because I thought it sounded neat.

Redington (bottom) with an Esee 3-HM (top). The latter features an actual linen micarta handle.

Its Bowie-shaped 5-inch blade and full-tang handle (the handle is bolted to the outside of the metal) is strong, looks nice, and is reasonably practical for both wood-splitting and finer slicing tasks. I’m also a fan of Giant Mouse’s refined details. Here, those include a prominent choil paired with sharp forward jimping on the spine that allow you to securely choke up your grip, so the knife can work smaller when necessary. The spine is squared off forward of the handle so it can spark a ferro rod, but smoothly radiused as it enters the handle, which combines with good scale fitment to eliminate potential hot spots.

Redington (top) next to an Esee 6 that I’ve carried since the 2000s.

GM’s materials claim those handle scales are made from linen micarta—my favorite knife handle material—but this is actually G10. That’s not quite as soft in the hand, but prominent ridges are milled into that typically slick material to offer solid grip, wet or dry, bare hands or gloved.

The kydex sheath is also free of any unfinished edges. It uses Chicago screws on the blade’s heel and finger guard for solid, adjustable retention. And while the nylon belt loop isn’t quite long enough to move the pommel below the level of your belt, so you won’t be able to wear it under a backpack hip belt, the eyelets feature standard spacing, so I’ll be able to replace that loop with straps, or my favorite MKC kydex loop.

Redington (top) with a Mora in a custom sheath wearing one of the kydex loops Montana Knife Company includes with its sheaths. Since MKC promotes hate, I no longer carry their knives, but at least that’s given me a source of these takeoffs!

Magnacut steel is as good as its reputation, and is handsomely presented here with a stonewashed finish. The benefits of Magnacut are that it strongly resists rust and discoloration, and pairs the typically conflicting knife steel properties of edge retention and chip resistance. The downside of Magnacut is that it’s hard to work, so knives made from it tend to be expensive. This big hunk of it costs $425 and production is limited to only 225 units.

A journalist with more than two decades of experience working around the world, Wes Siler is here to cut through the outrage and disinformation to bring you the factual, insightful, actionable reporting you need to understand what’s going on. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports this reporting, and buys personal access to Wes, who will help you save money on gear, and prepare for real life.