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Your next Lyft ride could be in a giant hot dog on wheels

An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile will pick up Lyft XL customers in certain cities. It will be a trip to relish.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
2 min read
wienermobile

That's a tasty lookin' ride.

 Oscar Mayer

Well, doggone it. Oscar Mayer and Lyft are teaming up to give some riders a trip in the Wienermobile, a 27-foot-long (8.2-meter) hot dog on wheels. But it's only for three days and in just four cities, so you'd better hope you don't get burned.

People who select a Lyft XL-sized ride from Aug. 25 through Aug. 27 in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago could be surprised by the Wienermobile showing up as their transportation. Emphasis on the "could," as there aren't enough Wienermobiles for everyone to go around. But those who luck out will not only get a free ride in the cool car, they'll also get music, neon lights, free swag, masks and Weenie Whistles to dress up their ride. 

Sure, it's all a big promotion for the two companies, but to be frank, the Wienermobile looks like a doggone fun way to get wherever you're going. Unless it's to a vegetarian dinner party.

Meat company Oscar Mayer owns six of the Wienermobiles. In 2020, one of them made the news when it got pulled over by the Waukesha County sheriff in Wisconsin for not following that state's Move Over law. That poor driver probably got grilled.

The Wienermobile was invented in 1936 to transport the company's spokesman, though that first version was only 13 feet (3.9 meters) long. The concept has been improved and refined over the years, and in addition to the six Wienermobiles, there's now a WienerDrone; an unmanned, hot dog-carrying aircraft; and a three-wheeled WienerCycle.