Onata incident

At one time, in the South Korea, there was a rumor that if students had the S-shaped emblem, they could go to a prestigious university (Seoul National University), and if they had the letter III, they could get a score of 300 on the College Scholastic Ability Test, which led to the Onata incident in which test takers secretly removed the Sonata III emblem. Therefore, there were many Sonata IIIs with the letters S and III missing from the emblem and for this reason, Hyundai Motors implemented a free emblem replacement service.

During the Onata incident, students were so desperate to hide the missing S-shaped emblem from their Hyundai Sonata III that they started arriving at the test center with blank emblems just to avoid suspicion!

Onata incident by Emotional Cruiser November 13, 2025