Baboons go ape over new Hyundai at Knowsley Safari Park

Ever get sick of the little monkeys in the back ruining your new motor? Hyundai gave their new family car the ultimate child-proof challenge by inviting 40 baboons to test it out at Knowsley Safari Park.


The Hyundai i30 hatchback was made available to the monkeys for a full 10 hours. They left plenty of mess but a limited amount of damage. This particular troop of baboons are well-known for tearing off parts of park visitors’ cars, most famously Wayne Rooney’s vehicle when he visited the Merseyside attraction last year.

Footage of the incident shows the monkeys testing the indicators, with one even giving the steering wheel a lick. 

“For a baboon, to have a car to play with for a whole day is manna from heaven” said 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”.

On the exterior, the paintwork was smeared and scraped, but survived significant scratches and chips.

Hyundai said the test would shape “research and development of future cars”, donating £1,000 to the Primate Society of Great Britain to show their gratitude to the baboons who took part in the Knowsley Park experiment.