This publicity stunt was, quite frankly, genius. If a Hyundai can survive 40 baboons at Knowsley Safari Park, it can probably deal with your little monkeys (see what they did there.) They’re calling it a durability test, but I think YouTube was always on the agenda. The best bit is that Hyundai has donated £1,000 to one of Knowsley’s supported charities, the Primate Society of Great Britain, which works for the conservation and captive care of new and old world monkeys, gibbons and apes. Baboons from Knowsley were chosen for the 'test' because of their love of tearing visitors’ cars to bits – most famously footballer Wayne Rooney’s vehicle when he visited the Merseyside attraction last year. Hyundai parked its i30 family car in the baboon enclosure for 10 hours. It’ll probably need more than a Magic Tree to eradicate the smell of baboon piss, but it drove out again and survived with minor damage. “For a baboon, to have a car to play with for a whole day is manna from heaven!” says David Ross, General Manager at Knowsley Safari Park. “I’ve seen thousands of cars pass through this enclosure, get mobbed by monkeys, and none have lasted the distance as well as this Hyundai. These baboons are incredibly inquisitive. If you put them on any car they will scour it for the weak points and find any faults. At one point there were 40 monkeys in the car, pushing it to its limits – that’s 10 times the size of the average human family!” For video see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCoIyoP_n3g |