Dave the Diver’s Jungle Expansion Stars a 1976 Hyundai Pony Truck—and It Might Just Make You Want One

Video game crossovers with cars usually mean one thing: realistic racing sims where you pilot a hypercar around a digital track. Hyundai’s N division famously went that route back around 2014, engineering a wild fuel-cell-powered racing concept specifically for Gran Turismo. But the brand just took a wildly different path by dropping a beat-up red 1976 Hyundai Pony pickup truck into the latest expansion of Dave the Diver—one of the most successful indie games in recent memory. And somehow, it works perfectly.

Dave the Diver is that rare phenomenon: a deceptively simple game with a retro aesthetic that captured the world’s attention. The title sold 1 million copies in 10 days upon release and has since clocked around 6 million households across Nintendo, Steam, and other platforms. The new “In the Jungle” DLC pack extends the adventure into uncharted territory, and the Pony isn’t just window dressing—it’s actually useful, serving as fast-travel and showing up in a pursuit sequence where Dave outruns an angry boar. You can also unlock a display model for your in-game hut if you butter up the somewhat grumpy villagers.

Why the Pony? Because It’s Genuinely Charming

To understand why an old Korean-market car-based pickup is a perfect fit for this franchise, you need to know what Dave the Diver actually is. It’s essentially two games living in one body: during the day, you pilot a two-dimensional Dave around with a spear gun, capturing fish in a diving minigame. Every night, you shift into fast-paced sushi restaurant management, juggling demanding customers and laughing at gloriously artistic retro-digital cutscenes. The whole thing is packed with jokes, silly characters, and an almost cartoonish sense of humor.

That lighthearted tone is why only the Pony will do. The truck has a friendly, almost naive face—it’s the kind of vehicle that belongs in a game about a diver who befriends beluga whales and runs a sushi restaurant. It’s not aggressive. It’s not trying to impress you. It just shows up and gets the job done with a goofy grin.

The Pony’s Unlikely Legend in Korea

The 1976 Pony is South Korea’s first domestically mass-produced vehicle. Launched as a four-door sedan in winter 1975 and followed by the pickup variant six months later, the Pony’s origin story is almost absurd: the factory that built it went from bare wasteland to profitable mass production in less than a year. That’s not hyperbole—it’s the kind of industrial achievement that defined the nation’s post-war economic boom.

In Korea, the Pony is revered the way Germany adores the Beetle or France cherishes the Citroën 2CV. It’s a national icon, a humble symbol of a country proving it could manufacture quality vehicles on the world stage. The truck had all the charm of those early little Japanese pickups that established themselves in the United States during the 1960s—simple, practical, and surprisingly endearing.

The North American Stumble (And What It Teaches Us)

Here’s where the story gets interesting: when Hyundai exported the second-generation Pony to Canada in the 1980s, the reception was… rough. The truck was a perfectly adequate 1970s vehicle—genuinely as good as a contemporary Mazda GLC. But next to a 1985 Honda Civic, the Pony’s rear-wheel-drive layout, modest power, and notorious tendency to rust into oblivion became liabilities. Hyundai sold plenty of them, but when the cars didn’t last, the brand faced a backlash that hurt its reputation for years.

The irony is thick: the same truck that Korea loved was rejected by North America. It wasn’t because the Pony was bad—it was because it was judged by different standards. In Korea, it represented hope and progress. In North America, it was just another cheap import that fell apart. Reputation is everything in cars, and Hyundai spent the next 30 years proving it could build vehicles that lasted.

What This Means for Hyundai Today

Fast-forward to now, and Hyundai’s pickup game is… limited. The Santa Cruz, the brand’s car-based compact pickup, is set to be discontinued after this year with no clear replacement announced. There’s no modern spiritual successor to the Pony in Hyundai’s lineup, despite the brand becoming one of the most respected automakers on the planet.

The internet has had fun with renders of an Ioniq 5 transformed into a pickup—slicing off the back and bolting on a cargo bed. There’s even speculation that maybe Hyundai should create another gaming crossover concept, this time a modern Pony-inspired truck for Gran Turismo or Forza. For now, if you want a Hyundai pickup, the Santa Cruz is your last real option, assuming you can find one before production ends. And if you want a genuine vintage Korean truck? Good luck. They’re about as common outside Korea as a working 1976 Pony.

The real takeaway here is that Dave the Diver just did what marketing departments spend millions to fail at: it made millions of people genuinely interested in a 48-year-old Korean truck. Not because it was photorealistic or flashy, but because it fit the game’s soul perfectly. Sometimes the best brand crossover isn’t about horsepower or specs. It’s about charm, and the Pony has always had that in spades.

Sources: Car and Driver