Happy Hot Dog Birthday! The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Turns 75

If only we’d known Monday was the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile’s 75th birthday, we would’ve popped a package of hot dogs on the grill to celebrate! The classic car was born in 1936, and has been bringing tubular meat joy around the country ever since.

Time reports on the big birthday, noting that not much has changed for the vehicle — it’s still rocking the orange and yellow paint job — but has now added a celebratory party hat in honor of the big 75.

The first iteration of the processed meat creation was a 13-foot metal shell seen around in Chicago to advertise Oscar Mayer’s hot dogs. The man with the plan for mobile wiener domination is said to be Oscar’s nephew, Carl Mayer. He then got the job of driving his idea around town as a reward for being so dang smart.

Eventually, the roving wiener truck became an icon for the company, as it expanded and began selling other processed meat products.

The most recent Wienermobile is 27 feet and has other five other sausage friends in the fleet. So who gets the job of steering the iconic cars around the U.S.? Each year 12 college grads are dubbed “hotdoggers” and show up throughout the country at various promotional events, including the Super Bowl and Kentucky Derby.

Happy (belated) birthday, Wienermobile! We toast our buns to you.

One Beefy Birthday: Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile Turns 75 [Time.com]

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