Kiss-mas Shopping

I stumbled across this little beauty for sale on the Hershey website:

I've never seen this 6 1/2 inch model for sale before but it's good to see Hershey's is still promoting imagery of the Kissmobile! I know I put it on my Christmas list!

Thanksgiving 2011 Wrap Up

Another year of stuffed birds and stuffed bellies has gone by and now hear we sit: sleepy, satisfied and yet curious to know which product mobiles made their yearly parade appearances. Well, worry no more.

We start with Chicago's McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade which begins itself with, appropriately a version of the Ronald McDonald Big Red Shoe Car:


I don't think I've seen this one before and I've got to say that I'm not a big fan. It looks like some type of inflatable shoe on wheels and I share Roadside America's feelings on inflatables (spoiler: they're not good.)

Next is the Houston Holiday Parade which I believe is giving the blog its first look at the elusive H-E-B Fun Buggy:


You may be able to pick up on a theme here because next up in Houston is another Ronald McDonald Big Red Shoe car (this is the one whose creator we interviewed earlier).


And of course we have yet another Big Red Shoe Car at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:


And Mr. Peanut arrived later in his new Nutmobile. While the older Nutmobile made several Macy's Parade appearances, this is the first time for the new one.


Not a bad turnout.

Upcoming Product Mobile Sightings

Next week is Thanksgiving, the biggest product mobile holiday of the year! Why? One word: parades!

The biggest parade, Macy's, is including their usual product mobile line up: Planter's Nutmobile and the Ronald McDonald Big Red Shoe Car.

It's their usual line up but, just like every year I'm hoping for some surprise appearances (I'm usually disappointed though). I'll be all over the wishbone when it's carving time.

Nutmobile on MotorWeek

The Shoe Maker

We've mention the Ronald McDonald Big Red Shoe Car several times on this blog and we recently had a chance to talk with its creator Jason Barnett!


Fast Food: How did you get involved with the creation of the Shoe Car?

Jason Barnett: In about April of 2002, a friend of mine was one of the local Ronald McDonald's that made appearances at McDonald's events. He came to me and said that the Texas Gulf Coast McDonald's were looking to have a promotional vehicle made is the shape of a Ronald McDonald clown shoe and that they were going to have some of the local art car parade guys bid and build it. My friend Bill (Ronald), told me of a meeting that was to take place the next day in Houston about the shoe car idea and if I wanted to get a bid in that I had better have something ready by that morning. I immediately did a quick sketch of my idea and built a remote control model of my idea using a PT Cruiser remote control car that I bought and removed the body from.


JB: I worked all through the night and at about 5 am the remote control car was finished. The problem was, at the time I lived in Midlothian and it was a 4 hour drive to the meeting. I drove all the way down to Houston and handed over the car sketches and the remote control model. Bill is the ultimate in presenters and showmen. He waited for the meeting to start with all of the board members at their giant table and then flung open the doors and drove the remote control car into the room. Instantly my phone was ringing and the board wanted to meet. Over the next few months we went back and forth over the design and over a year later I received a check to get started.


FF: How long did it take to design and build?

JB: The actual construction process involved about two years of hard labor and itching from the fiberglass body. I had underbid the project so badly that I had to take on other jobs to fund the project. If not for that blunder, it would only have taken about a year to complete. As I was building the car, improvements were made to its design. The first thing was that I decided to make the entire nose of the car flip forward to access the engine and I decided to have suicide doors.


JB: The car was about 8ft wide in the front and narrowed down to about 4ft wide at the rear. It would have been very difficult to get to the engine with a normal car style hood. Originally the car was to be built on a 2003 Chevy1/2 ton truck chassis with a 6 cylinder engine. When I went down to buy a truck from the dealership, they made me a better deal on a truck with a V8 and cruise control. I have personally driven the shoe car well over 100mph!

FF: What was your favorite part of the process?

JB: As far as my favorite part of building the car goes. I would have to say that was when I got the fiberglass body back in from the workshop that hand laid the fiberglass. We didn't use molds. I carved the shape of the car out of huge blocks of foam and then coated them with layers of drywall mud to fill in the imperfections. The giant mock-up was sprayed with latex paint to create a barrier from the fiberglass. Once the fiberglass was laid up on the mockup and cured, I popped the new fiberglass body off of the foam. I still had a lot of hand work to do to the body, but at that point the car was coming to life. Anytime a new part was added- doors,hood, hatchback,etc., it was necessary to drive it around to test for problems and rattles. There was nothing like watching kids and adults freak out as I drove past in the 23 ft long shoe.


JB: I had it in my head from the beginning that I was going to be able to pull this off entirely by myself. Luckily for me, I had a lot of friends and family that volunteered and spent endless days and nights to make this project a reality.

Check out Jason's website for more of his unique work:

http://www.jasonbarnett.net

He's a very talented guy and we hope to cover his upcoming projects so check back soon for more details!

Off the Hook

Remember the Phone Car? Well, bad news:


According to their website, here's what happened:

"On Jan 27 2011 the building that the phone car was being stored in,
collapsed from the weight of heavy snow. The crushed vehicle was
totaled by the insurance company. We bought it back with hopes
of repairing it."


You can see additional pictures of the damage of their website.


Hopefully the Phone Car will be up and running and taking calls again soon!

Sausage Party

The stars aligned recently which culminated in a convergence of all the different kinds of Wienermobiles!
The Wienermobile Food Truck, one of the regular, full sized Wienermobiles and the mini Wienermobile all in the same place! And it was glorious!!

Check out more pictures of the "meating" on the Hotdogger Blog!

Planters Planting

As a part of the Planters Naturally Remarkable promotional tour, Mr. Peanut his Nutmobile show up to help build parks in inner city neighborhoods (or something). Sounds good to me.

Anyhoo, here are some pictures (from Mr. Peanut's Facebook page) of the Nutmobile at some of the parks in Washington D.C. and New Orleans:

Vintage Grab Bag

Good ole Uncle Frank sent us a grab bag of vintage product mobile pics:




I don't have any information on these so if you do please feel free to send it on! And go say "hi" to Uncle Frank at The Hot Dog Hall of Fame:

www.thehotdoghalloffame.com

Pastey

The Crest Imagine Mobile Tour happened a few years ago and brought minty freshness to the mealy mouthed masses.


The 48 foot long trailer (yes, trailers count as product mobiles) contained eight "brushing stations" that allowed people to walk in off the street and enjoy a refreshing brush.


I have no documentation on this but I would imagine that they would strategically park near Garlic Festivals and/or Eating Contests.


Here's a short article about the tour from Event Marketer:


See also:

The Yoo-Hoo Trailer - The Pringles Trailer

Happy Birthday to the Wienermobile!

Happy 75th birthday to the Wienermobile!

Check out the official birthday video:

You’re watching You’ve Got Wienermobile. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video

Peanut Vendor?

Hurm. This makes me a little nervous:

Is Mr. Peanut looking to sell his new Nutmobile already? We finally got the Nutmobile back on the road! It seems a little early...

Well, if he does want to sell he should call me first. I missed out on buying the SpamMobile, I don't want to miss out on this.

(Also...you guys can loan me the money, right?)

Appealing News

The Big Banana Car was featured on NPR. Here's the interview:

Wienermobile Food Truck

There's a new Wienermobile in town! Check out the press release from Turtle Transit:

The Oscar Mayer brand celebrated its 75th Anniversary of the Wienermobile in New York City by unveiling the first-ever, special edition Wienermobile Food Truck; built by Turtle Transit. For 75 years, the Wienermobile has been on a mission to spread miles of smiles. The new 30-foot Wienermobile Food Truck, the largest vehicle to date, will join the current iconic fleet of seven Wienermobile vehicles. Unlike the rest of Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile fleet, this is the first to include a commercial kitchen inside and has the functionality to serve hot dogs to the public.


Experiential agency, Pierce Promotions, challenged Turtle Transit to design the special-edition Wienermobile Food Truck. This challenging assignment required Turtle to spend a great deal of time conceptually designing the look of the new vehicle so it was as iconic as the original Wienermobile, but also a truly authentic part of the Oscar Mayer fleet. Not only was it challenging to design the overall look of the New Wienermobile, Turtle needed to engineer the vehicle to include a full-size commercial kitchen inside for sampling Oscar Mayer products.

This required Turtle meet the strict standards imposed by the National Food Safety and design a kitchen that was NFS Certified for Oscar Mayer staff to prepare and serve hotdogs to the public. In addition to the strict electrical and water standards for a kitchen vehicle, Turtle installed NFS certified stainless steel countertops for food preparation, along with NFS commercial food equipment including sinks, a freezer and a press for grilling Oscar Mayer hotdogs. From electrical wiring for ventilation, outlets and overhead lighting, to plumbing water flow from storage tanks to hand-washing sinks, Turtle spent several hours testing water quality, filtration and electrical safety requirements to meet NFS certification.



Turtle installed a flip-up vending window on the side of the vehicle for staff to serve samples during events and at retail locations. To create the Wiernermobile’s head turning and iconic look, Turtle hand-sculpted a rooftop hot dog out of fiberglass and mounted it to the vehicle to give it an impressive footprint of 30-ft in length and over 12-ft tall. Oscar Mayer partnered with Tyler Florence, Food Network Chef and host of “The Great Food Truck Race,” to unveil the vehicle on the popular morning news show, “Fox and Friends.” Hundreds gathered in Times Square for a chance to see the Wienermobile Food Truck, get a free Oscar Mayer Selects Beef Frank and enjoy special toppings created by Tyler Florence.


This summer, the Oscar Mayer Wiernermobile Food Truck will travel to 12 cities including Columbus, Detroit and Pittsburgh, to sample Oscar Mayer Selects. To help continue the Oscar Mayer “Good Mood Mission,” Tyler Florence and the Oscar Mayer brand donated $50,000 to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief organization. Consumers can follow where the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Food Truck will be headed or find photos of the vehicle on its Facebook page.

And check out this video of Tyler Florence rattling on about how much he loves Oscar Mayer and then making some horrible sounding pineapple salsa somthingorother:

The Sperm Bike (yeah, that's right)

So this one is a little unusual (but then again aren't they all) but it definitely qualifies as a product mobile.

The Danish "Sperm Bike" carries donor samples to fertility clinics around Copenhagen. Check out the pics:




Here's the website (I think):

http://www.nordiskcryobank.dk/

Yellow Fever

Sorry it's been so long between updates. It's this crazy summer heat. It makes the bones lazy. I'll try and do better.

But here's where I make it up to you with the story of the Banana Car:


Here's the car's origin story:

Meat Up

The Robert Bliss blog spotted a multiple product mobile pow wow in Houston recently during the NCAA Final Four:


Check out their blog entry for their thoughts on witnessing such a rare and monumental match up. Also, check out their site for some of the interesting work they are doing in mobile marketing and live events:

http://robertblissevents.com/

And in other Wienermobile news, not too long after the Wienermobile Wedding, comes the story of another good deed. The Wienermobile escorted a young motorcycle accident victim to his High School prom. Here's the story:

Shoe for the Road

We've seen Ronald McDonald's Big Red Shoe Car, the Stiletto Car and a couple of Skate Cars but the Chinese wanted to get in on the action so we now have an addition to the Shoe Car Genre:


This electric car is made out of leather (I assume just the exterior though), can go up to 30 mph and was made to promote a shoe company called "Kang" (not to be confused with Kang or Kang or even Kang).

You can see it in action in the video below:

A Wienermobile Wedding

Recently a couple rode off to their new life together in the Wienermobile (the story is in the middle of this video):



This is a little irritating for me as it happened in Dallas, TX and that's where I live. I would have loved to have been able to cover it for the blog.

The irritating policy of the Wienermobile to keep their destinations secret is getting increasingly...irritating. Come on Wienermobile people! Let us know where you're going to be!

Spitting Image

Here's an article from a 2006 issue of the "Bullpen" newsletter about the David's Seeds "Seedmobile" which toured the country and stopped at ballparks and sporting events:


Here's a better look (courtesy of Uncle Frank from The Hot Dog Hall of Fame):


Some of the press releases I found indicate that the car spat out packages of sunflowers seeds. I can't find any video to verify that but that great big face sure looks like he's about to spit.

Going Nuts

The new Nutmobile is still getting plenty of press and people just can't seem to stop commenting on Mr. Peanut's nuts:

Behold...Crushstation!

Finally, a product mobile with some power!


We're no stranger to lobster themed product mobiles, but the Monster Truck Crushstation makes them look like crawdads.


There's some speculation as to whether a monster truck can qualify as a product mobile. But since Crushstation frequently promotes McLaughlin Seafood (and other sponsors) I'm willing to give it a pass. I'd be too scared not to.

Check out Crushstation doing what it does best (here's a hint: it involves crushing):



For more on Crushstation check out:

http://www.crushstation4x4.com/

"Not a Product Mobile" Part 7: The Colossal Colon

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
Part 5 - Part 6

It's time for the next installment of "Not a Product Mobile" which features things that aren't product mobiles and yet they're usually still big and interesting and they tour across the country.

This time it's "The Colossal Colon!"


Here's some video we shot a few years ago when "Coco" the Colossal Colon visited Dallas:



For more on the Colossal Colon visit:

http://www.colonclub.com/

New Nutmobile!

There's a new Nutmobile on the road and this one is eco-friendly!
Planter's announced its new vehicle and tour recently and has been getting a lot of press:

• NPR
• Motor Trend
• USA Today
• New York Times

...just to name a few. These are exciting times in the world of product mobiles and we'll be following news of this new vehicle closely. Can't wait to see it in person!

A Very Wienermobile Valentine's Day

This year you can give your sweetie the greatest gift of all: A Wienermobile Valentine's Day Card:



You can download the printable PDF on the Hotdogger Blog.