Automakers doing crossovers with video games isn't a new thing, but generally, the games involve realistic racing. For instance, about 10 years back, Hyundai's N division released a wild fuel-cell-powered racing concept specifically meant to be a playable car in Gran Turismo. In this case, however, we've got a global manufacturer lending a battered old red pickup truck to a plucky aquatic hero who's a bit more beluga than shark.
Dave the Diver is one of the most successful video games of the past few years. On release, it sold 1 million copies in 10 days and has gone on to capture around 6 million households on various platforms from Nintendo to Steam. Now, there's a new downloadable add-on package, and it includes a red 1976 Hyundai Pony pickup.
To understand why an old Korean-market, car-based pickup truck is a perfect fit for this franchise, you need to know a little about the game. It's essentially two main games in one, with a host of other mini-games that emulate the spirit of past hits like Guitar Hero or Duck Hunt. In the diving section, you capture fish by piloting the two-dimensional Dave around with his spear gun. Then, every night, there's a fast-paced section where you manage a sushi restaurant with a host of demanding customers.
It's packed with jokes, silly characters, gloriously artistic retro-digital cutscenes, and some pretty scary fish. It's this sense of lighthearted humor that runs throughout the game and its add-ons that means only a Pony will do.
The Hyundai Pony pickup truck.
Launched as a four-door sedan in the winter of 1975 and as a two-door pickup six months later, the Pony was South Korea's first domestic mass-produced vehicle. The story of its success beggars belief, with the factory that produced it going from bare waste ground to profitable mass production in less than a year.
As an early symbol of South Korea's growing industrial power, this little car was mighty despite its small size, and they were soon everywhere on the roads of the growing nation. Later, in the 1980s, Hyundai exported the second generation of the Pony to Canada. Overall, that did not go particularly well.
Reason being the Pony was a perfectly adequate 1970s car, just as good as a contemporary Mazda GLC or similar. Next to a 1985 Honda Civic, its rear-wheel-drive layout, modest power, and tendency to rust into oblivion meant the Pony sold incredibly well, but then Hyundai faced a backlash when the cars didn't last.
However, in Korea, the Pony is adored in the same way that Germany loves the VW Beetle and France loves the Citroën 2CV. With its friendly face and simple utility, it's got all the charm of those early little Japanese trucks that established a beachhead in the United States back in the 1960s.
In the In The Jungle add-on pack, the Pony belongs to a local villager and offers various fast-travel functions. It can also be driven in a pursuit section where Dave and his friends try to outrun a large and angry boar, and a display model of it for your in-game hut is an unlockable bonus if you play your cards right and get some of the somewhat grumpy villagers on your side.
It's enough to make you slightly want a Korean-market vintage pickup truck to tool around in, whether to carry scuba-diving gear or just haul a fishing rod and a bucket of bait down to the local lake. If you want a Hyundai pickup these days, the Santa Cruz will have to do for now, but it is set to be discontinued after this year, with no clear replacement. There are, however, plenty of renders out there of an Ioniq 5 with the back removed and a cargo bed in its place. Maybe your next downloadable concept for Gran Turismo, Hyundai? Dave would approve.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
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