It was monkey business as usual at Knowsley Safari Park this week - after a group of baboons went ape and monkeyed around with a family car. (That's enough monkey puns - Ed.)

The family car in question was a Hyundai i30 - deliberately parked in the baboon enclosure in order to test its durability and, of course, garner some publicity.

"At Hyundai we believe in new thinking, which is why we decided to take a new approach with this durability test," says i30 Product Manager Felicity Wood. "The fact that it survived with only a few scrapes is testament to the way a modern Hyundai is designed and engineered. We really do give a monkeys about building tough cars!" (What did I tell you about the monkey puns - Ed.)

Some of the baboons 'tested' the fabric of seats by eating their lunch in the i30 while others played with their toys in the boot. As the press release says: "Hyundai hopes lessons learnt from the monkey tests can inform the research and development of future cars" - so presumably we can now look forward to those cars having boots that children can play in. Hurrah!

And for all those concerned about animal welfare, fear not. To thank the primates for their help, Hyundai has donated £1,000 to the Primate Society of Great Britain. And as Knowsley Safari Park's General Manager, David Ross, says: "For a baboon, to have a car to play with for a whole day is manna from heaven." And there we were, thinking it was bananas...

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