


You might expect to see litter, trash or even roadkill on the side of a highway. But a 3,600-pound hot dog? Just after 11 a.m. Monday, employees of Oscar Mayer were driving one of the company’s promotional Wienermobiles on an Illinois highway when the driver hit another car, lost control, overcorrected and rolled the vehicle on its side, the Illinois State Police said.
No one was injured in the crash, but the right northbound lane of Interstate 294 near the suburb of Oak Brook was closed for about an hour, the police said. Social media users were soon sharing images of the overturned vehicle with relish. “A wurst-case scenario,” one observed.
The company’s promotional literature describes the Wienermobile as “a grilled fiberglass hot dog that is resting on a lightly toasted fiberglass bun.” After the collision, the base of the vehicle, a yellow sedan, rested on its driver-side door in the middle of the highway, still attached to the hot-dog-shaped roof. The front fender of the car appeared to be missing and the headlights were smashed.
Video taken after the collision showed two people — “hotdoggers,” as the company calls them — climbing out of the passenger-side door and hopping down to safety. Later, a tow truck crane arrived, scooped up the Wienermobile and carried it away.
“We’re grateful that everybody involved is safe and there were no injuries,” Oscar Mayer, a Chicago-based packaged meat producer, said in a statement. “We’re offering ongoing support for our Hotdoggers, and we appreciate the support we’ve received from local authorities.”
In 1936, Carl Mayer, the nephew of the company’s founder, “came up with the idea of a 13-foot metal hot dog on wheels” as an advertising gimmick, according to the company.