The Wienermobile is the Greatest Vehicle in America

Seriously folks, I think it’s time to give credit where credit is due and say that the Weinermobile is fucking awesome. Just look at this goddamn thing:

It’s a 27-foot-long, 11-foot-high driving hot dog.  Thousands upon thousands of people apply and enter contests to be able to drive the Wienermobile for one day.  It’s arrival in many a hometown is considered a huge event, covered in painstaking detail by local news affiliates and attended by hundreds (or thousands) of citizens.  How is that anything but fantastic?

The Wienermobile and all of its unparalleled greatness was created in 1936 by Oscar Meyer’s nephew, Carl, who was undoubtedly a man whose brilliance and sheer genius has rarely been seen in modern history.  After all, anyone can decide to paint a corporate logo on the side of a car and drive around, but it takes extraordinary vision and commitment to excellence to create a car resembling a processed meat product, call it a Wienermobile and turn it into a traveling cultural icon of legendary proportions.

Aside from its obvious aesthetic charm, the modern incarnation of the Wienermobile is a technological marvel, containing voice-activated GPS, a state-of-the-art audio center and a horn that plays the Weiner Jingle in twenty-one different genres.  That’s right, twenty one.  If you live in the south and want to hear a cajun version of the Wiener Jingle, they’ve got you covered.  Live in the city and want to hear a hip-hop Wiener Jingle?  All you gotta do is ask.  I’ll bet they’ve got a death metal Wiener Jingle and a reggae Wiener Jingle too, if that’s your thing.  The Wienermobile also has a removable hot dog bun roof (lightly toasted of course), a hot dog shaped dashboard and relish-colored seats.  I don’t know if there is anything in the Wienermobile that isn’t absolutely magnificent.

While I’m sure many a company over the years has tried in vain to create their own promotional meat-based oversized novelty vehicle, the Wienermobile is clearly in a class by itself.  It’s been in movies and its taken a lap at the Indianapolis 500.  Give it a few more years, and it will probably have cured cancer, or at the very least, swine flu, defeated some terrorists and won the Stanley Cup.

So what’s next for this delightful slice of Americana?  I hear they are making a Mini Weinermobile, but beyond that, the future is largely unknown.  Surely, the current fleet of seven Wienermobiles will continue to traverse the nation, delighting children, hot dog enthusiasts, and fans of food-based novelty vehicles in general, but then what?  I’m sure at some point a competing food brand will try to take on the folks at Oscar Meyer for the crown of most awesome novelty car, but what food would be worthy to challenge the Wienermobile for this illustrious crown?  I suppose a Baconmobile would be pretty cool, but it wouldn’t really work as a car; a skateboard would be better.  A Hotpocketmobile has potential if the seats, paint and interior gauges could look like bits of ham or melted cheese and the horn played the Hot Pockets jingle, but it still lacks a certain, I don’t know…panache.

No, it looks like the Wienermobile has a virtual monopoly on the market of hot dog-based automotive tourist attractions.  This, of course, fine by me, as long as the folks at Oscar Meyer continue their Wienermobiling ways and they drop by my town every once in a while.

This has been Andy sayin’, “These select few are making three cents a day.”