A hood latch engages a striker for latching a hood panel movable between open and closed positions relative to a body panel. The striker is mounted on one of the panels. A housing is mounted on the other panel. A pop-up lever is pivotally mounted to the housing for movement between lowered and raised positions. A pop-up spring bias the pop-up lever to the raised position. A latch lever has a hook for latching engagement with the striker. The latch lever is pivotally mounted to the pop-up lever for movement between latched and unlatched positions and has a handle for manually moving the latch lever. A latch spring acts between the pop-up lever and the latch lever to rotate the latch lever towards the latched position. A detent lever pivotally mounts to the housing for releasably engaging and retaining the pop-up lever in the lowered position and preventing rotation to the raised position. A detent spring acts between the detent lever and the housing for biasing rotation of the detent lever towards engagement with the pop-up lever. A cable is attached to the detent lever to rotate the detent lever away from engagement with the pop-up lever to release the pop-up lever from the lowered position. This release of the pop-up lever from the lowered position allows the pop-up spring to rotate the pop-up lever to the raised position. The latch lever and handle are then exposed to allow rotation of the handle.
