This is, of course, all part of gruesome marketing campaign Hyundai is involved with to herald the arrival of the 100th issue of The Walking Dead comic book at the Comic-Con International trade show running from July 12ththrough July 15thin San Diego this year.
The “Hyundai Undead” campaign is also part of what the Korean carmaker calls its “immersion into the Gen Y culture beyond music into other key passion points like entertainment and gaming” in order to drum up interest (and hopefully sales) of its Elantra line of sedans and coupes.
Indeed, the key part of this “undead” marketing effort will be a series of videos highlighting the step-by-step creation of this one-of-a-kind ZSM vehicle – a vehicle designed ostensibly to destroy zombies whilst protecting its human occupants from a ghastly end; of course with a little design panache thrown in for good measure.
But really … a CAR? A zombie aficionado like Kirkman believes a low-slung coupe is the ideal mechanized platform to deliver humanity from the flesh-eating clutches of the undead? REALLY?
Heck, zombies are often strong (creating one of but MANY contradictions within zombie-culture, for how can something rotted through with decay at the same time exert superhuman strength? But I digress …) and as they travel in packs could flip this little sport car easily one would think.
I say, if you want a vehicle not only capable of crushing legions of undead monstrosities to smithereens yet also capable of carrying loads of live humans to safety – not to mention the food, medical supplies, and weaponry necessary to ensure their survival – you go and modify a tractor-trailer.
Get yourself a big tractor equipped with a 600 horsepower engine, capable of towing one (if not more!) trailers fashioned with benches for packing in loads of live humans, storage racks for supplies, and mounting brackets for 50-caliber machine guns, flamethrowers, or whatever your anti-zombie weapon of choice might be, and NOW you’ve got yourself a bonafide bad-ass “Zombie Deliverance Machine” or “ZDM.”
There’s not a truck driver in the world that wouldn’t want to pilot such a rig (and not just because the driver’s seat would be the absolutely SAFEST spot to be, far out of reach of flesh-hungry zombies!)
Of course, this is all make-believe of the highest (and enjoyable!) order. Heck, even the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) got into the spirit of things when the usually stone-serious government agency unveiled its Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness guide a few years back.
And who yet knows? We may yet get to see a customized 18-wheeler carve out its own special niche in zombie lore one day.
