The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has recognized two Hyundai models — the 2021 Hyundai Elantra and Santa Fe — with Top Safety Pick status when the vehicles are outfitted with certain headlights. 

Specifically, for the Elantra, the award applies to the Limited trim, while in the case of the Santa Fe it applies to the Limited and Calligraphy trims. Those vehicles come with LED projector headlights that received a good rating by IIHS engineers — a key criterion for earning the award. 

Lower trims of the Elantra and Santa Fe come with far inferior headlights that earn only poor or marginal scores from the Institute. 

Both the Elantra, a small car, and the Santa Fe, a midsize SUV, underwent six challenging crashworthiness evaluations. These included the driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests. Both vehicles performed well, scoring good ratings across the board. 

But IIHS doesn't stop here. To capture a Top Safety Pick award, vehicles must also be available with a front crash prevention system that earns advanced or superior ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian tests. 

Here again, both vehicles measured up. The Elantra is available with two front crash prevention systems, one standard and the other optional. Both garnered superior ratings in the vehicle-to-vehicle evaluation. In the vehicle-to-pedestrian test the standard system scored an advanced rating while the optional system, which avoided hitting the pedestrian dummy in all scenarios, captured a superior rating.

Not to be outdone, the Santa Fe crash prevention system earned superior ratings in both tests. The system avoided collisions in all the vehicle-to-vehicle and all but one of the vehicle-to-pedestrian scenarios.