Posted Friday, January 30, 2026 at 9:02pm
I can imagine Miguel Cortina, the editor who manages our comparison tests, sitting at his desk and wringing his hands in evil glee. “What can I do to Gold to mess with him?” he asks himself. “I can’t order him to count the grains of sand in the Mojave Desert. I can’t send him to mow Iowa. Oh, I know—I’ll assign him a comparison between the Subaru Crosstrek and the Hyundai Kona. No, better still, the Crosstrek Hybrid and the Kona 1.6T! Mo-ho-ho-ho-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!”
It is at this point that he pauses long enough to grow a moustache long enough he can twirl its waxed ends between his fingers.
Why is this comparison so diabolical? Because the Subaru Crosstrek and Hyundai Kona are two of the best subcompact crossovers on the market. The Subaru narrowly lost to the Hyundai in our 2024–25 Big Test of Small SUVs, in which we called the Crosstrek a great all-arounder for folks who love road trips. The Kona, meanwhile, impressed (and still impresses) us with a spacious and modern interior, though it did lose a later comparison test to the Volkswagen Taos.
