Hyundai HS120V and HT100V: Hyundai's Return to Skid Steers and Track Loaders

Sep 24

6 min read

If you run a fleet with a couple of Hyundai excavators or an HL960A wheel loader in it, you may not know Hyundai sells a skid steer and a compact track loader at all. That's not a knock on your research — it's a real gap. Hyundai Construction Equipment Americas walked away from the skid steer and CTL business in North America years ago, and only came back with the HS120V skid steer and HT100V compact track loader, introduced at CONEXPO. For a brand that's been aggressively pushing new excavator generations and its first-ever articulated dump trucks onto this site's radar, the compact loader line is the one corner of the catalog most contractors still don't associate with the Hyundai name.

That's worth fixing, because the HS120V and HT100V aren't a rebadged afterthought. They're a real large-frame entry aimed straight at the machines fleet managers already default to — Bobcat's T76-2/S76-2, Kubota's SVL97-3, CAT's 272D3 XE — and they come with a genuinely different pitch: single-brand parts and service if you're already running Hyundai iron, backed by a manufacturer that's clearly not treating this as a side project.

A Predecessor Worth Being Honest About

Most spotlights on this blog walk through what changed from the prior generation of a specific model. That comparison doesn't really exist here in the usual sense. Hyundai's prior skid steer and track loader offerings in North America predate this current HS/HT platform by enough years, and were sold under different distribution, that treating the HS120V and HT100V as a clean "next generation" of an old Hyundai model would be misleading. The honest way to frame it: this is Hyundai Construction Equipment Americas building a compact loader line from a current, ground-up platform to compete with the established players, not iterating on something contractors were already running. If you owned an older Hyundai skid steer a decade-plus ago, don't expect parts commonality — this is a new machine on a new platform, full stop.

What's Actually Under the Hood

Both machines share the same core: a Hyundai HTI4 four-cylinder turbocharged diesel putting out 70 net horsepower, built to meet Tier 4 Final in the U.S. and Stage V in markets that require it — no exhaust fluid tank to babysit, no urea dosing to plan around on a jobsite that doesn't have a supply line for it. That single-engine-across-both-machines approach is the same logic every other manufacturer on this list uses at this size class: one power plant, two undercarriages, lower parts complexity for the dealer network.

The HS120V skid steer carries a rated operating capacity of 2,690 pounds at 50% of tip and an operating weight of roughly 8,481 pounds in the closed-cab configuration — numbers that land it squarely in the same weight class as a CAT 262D3 or a Bobcat S76. Lift height runs about 8 feet 1 inch to the bucket pins, with 6,327 pounds of bucket breakout force and 4,354 pounds at the lift arm. Standard hydraulic flow is rated at 21.9 gpm at 3,335 psi — enough for the bucket, pallet fork, and general-purpose attachment work most GCs actually run day to day, though it's worth confirming the high-flow package's exact numbers with your dealer before committing to a flow-hungry attachment like a cold planer or a heavy brush cutter.

The HT100V track loader shares the same 70-hp engine and the same 0.58 cubic yard standard bucket, with published rated operating capacity landing right around the same figure as the skid steer in the spec sheets currently available — which is worth flagging honestly rather than pretending otherwise: a tracked machine at this weight class typically carries a meaningfully higher ROC than its wheeled sibling because of the larger ground-contact footprint, so if that number matters to your bid, get the HT100V's exact current spec sheet from a Hyundai dealer before you size a job around it rather than relying on a single published figure.

Vertical Lift, Auto Self-Level, and Hi Mate — the Parts That Actually Matter on a Jobsite

Both machines run a vertical lift boom path rather than a radial arc. That's the geometry that matters when you're loading a dump truck or a flatbed rather than digging at grade — the bucket rises essentially straight up and stays close to the machine through more of the lift cycle, which keeps reach and height at the top of the stroke instead of the bucket swinging out and away from you the way a radial-lift boom does. If your crew spends more time loading trucks and stockpiling material than digging footings, vertical lift is the right call every time, and Hyundai didn't cut a corner here to hit a price point — both the HS120V and HT100V ship vertical-lift standard.

Auto self-leveling keeps the attachment angle constant through the lift cycle without the operator riding the tilt function the whole way up — genuinely useful on a pallet-fork job where you don't want a load shifting or spilling material out of a bucket as it rises. And Hi Mate, Hyundai's telematics platform already familiar to anyone running a Hyundai excavator or wheel loader, comes standard rather than as a paid add-on tier — location, hour meter, fault codes, and maintenance scheduling in the same portal you're already using for the rest of a mixed Hyundai fleet. That single-portal fleet management is a genuinely underrated reason to standardize on one brand when it makes sense for your business, and it's the clearest advantage the HS120V/HT100V pair has over adding a fourth or fifth brand nameplate to a yard that's already juggling three telematics logins.

Who Should Actually Be Looking at This

The obvious answer is any contractor already running Hyundai excavators — an HX130A LCR or an HX210L on a site crew that also needs a skid steer for cleanup, material handling, and tight-access work the excavator can't reach. Adding the HS120V or HT100V to that fleet means one parts counter, one service relationship, and one telematics login instead of bolting on a Bobcat or a Kubota because that's what the rental yard had available. For a GC or a site-development contractor already sold on Hyundai's excavator lineup, that single-brand simplicity is worth real money over a few years of ownership, even before you get into financing terms.

The honest caution: this is still a newer entrant in a category where Bobcat, CAT, and Kubota have decades of used-market depth, dealer density, and resale data behind them. If you're buying purely on resale value five years out, the established brands still have the deeper track record. If you're buying to run the machine into the ground on your own jobs and you're already invested in the Hyundai ecosystem, the calculus flips — you get a well-specced, vertical-lift, telematics-equipped machine backed by a manufacturer that's clearly serious about the segment, at a moment when Hyundai's dealer network in North America keeps expanding.

The Financing Case

Renting a skid steer or CTL by the week to cover gaps between owned equipment is the single most expensive way to run this category of machine — every rental dollar goes out the door and buys the fleet nothing. A financed or leased HS120V or HT100V builds equity in a machine you'll use on every job for years, not just the ones where the rental math happened to work out. And because BFC finances equipment across brands rather than steering you toward one manufacturer's captive finance arm, adding a Hyundai skid steer or CTL to a mixed fleet — or building a single-brand Hyundai fleet from the ground up — gets evaluated the same way any other equipment purchase does: on your business, your credit profile, and the deal structure that actually fits, not on brand loyalty to a finance company. Deposit structures range from little to nothing down for strong, well-established credit up to a larger down payment for higher-risk profiles, and BFC can help fund the next piece of equipment while this one's still being paid down — something a lender that makes you wait years until a machine is fully paid off won't do for you.

For a deeper look at how the large-frame class breaks down across brands, the side-by-side on the large-frame track loader shootout is a good next read, and if you're weighing tracks against wheels for your next machine, our breakdown of the real ground pressure math behind skid steer vs. compact track loader decisions walks through exactly how to make that call. For Hyundai's broader 2026 excavator push, our HX400L excavator spotlight rounds out the rest of what Hyundai's been up to this year.