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Food brands have fun marketing their products in unique ways, but our favorite promotion is crafting a food shaped car. See which foods are hitting the road!Take Your Food on the Go – Literally!
It’s hard not to see an advertisement while out on the road between the billboards and the vehicles with promotional vinyl wraps. While it’s easy to focus on the road ahead and ignore the bright advertising, a giant piece of food on wheels passing you is harder to miss. There have been a ton of food shaped cars over the years that have been produced by businesses large and small. It’s a great gimmick that really captures everyone’s attention whether it’s parked at an event or cruising down the highway. We’ve compiled some of the most iconic of these hunger-inducing rides to see what’s under those food shaped bodies and find out which ones are still cruising today.
Lifesavers Pep-O-Mint Car
One of the earliest examples of a food shaped car is actually one of the most basic designs as well. The Lifesavers Pep-O-Mint car first appeared back in 1918 as a promotional vehicle in Australia. The company dropped a metal cylinder on a Dodge truck chassis and painted it in similar fashion to their candy wrappers. There were various Lifesavers Pep-O-Mint cars produced in different sizes and for different markets, but the company primarily used Dodge’s car and truck chassis throughout. These Pep-O-Mint cars weren’t just used for events either, salesmen were actually known to drive them to meet with clients.
Oscar Meyer Weinermobile
If there ever was an example on this list to be known as THE food shaped car, it’d be the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. The Weinermobile has been around since 1936 and has become a cultural icon across North America thanks to the model’s extensive travels. Oscar Meyer employs a fleet of Weinermobiles that are manned by The Hotdoggers – a group of college graduates helping promote the brand. This hot dog on wheels is commonly found traversing interstate highways and parking itself at large outdoor events.
The Weirnermobile has predominantly been built on top of a General Motors sourced chassis since 1969, but there have been two instances where other auto brands were underneath that food shaped fiberglass. One was the 2001 Weinermobile that rode on a Ram 1500 truck chassis. The other was the “Mini Weirnermobile” that slapped the Oscar Meyer Weiner on top of a Mini Cooper S in 2008.
Planters NUTmobile
The Planters NUTmobile actually predates the Weinermobile by one year, having hit the scene in 1935. This peanut on wheels promotes the Planters brand with the help of the Peanutters, college graduates behind the wheel that promote the brand similarly to The Hotdoggers. The modern NUTmobile rides on an Isuzu box truck chassis that was modified to include seating for six, a drop-down television, and storage for promotional products as well as the Mr. Peanut costume. In 2021, Planters modified one of their NUTmobiles into a camper that fans of the brand could rent and relax in while enjoying some lakefront ambiance in Duluth, Minnesota.
Goldfish Mobile
While the Goldfish Mobile has been missing in action for a while now, it was a pretty cool ride. The “snack that smiles back” rode on a heavy-duty chassis and featured the classic sunglasses wearing goldfish cracker for its fiberglass body. Drivers looked out the mouth of the fish’s smile to drive this abnormal ride that held proportions of 13’ tall, 8’ wide, and 22’ long. This promotional car was used by Pepperidge Farms during their Miles of Smiles nationwide event where the vehicle would travel from town to town dispersing Goldfish crackers at large events.
Hershey’s Kissmobile
The Hershey Company introduced their own entrant into the food shaped car space back in 1997. The Hershey’s Kissmobile features three giant Hershey’s Kiss chocolates riding on a chocolate bar sled with wheels. This over 25-foot long ride sits on a GMC W-Series chassis and features refrigerated rear Kiss that can hold over 230,000 chocolate Kisses. The middle Kiss of the Kissmobile holds the vehicles electronics and a compartment that reveals a large screen used for promotional content. At the front Kiss is the cab space where the Chocolate Ambassadors drive the Kissmobile to events.
Speaking of which, if this food shaped car drove past you, you’d catch a whiff of Hershey’s chocolate smell. Apparently, the company installed what they called the “Kissmobile Stinker” which released the aroma of chocolate to combat the smell of exhaust fumes. You unfortunately can’t experience this odd gimmick anymore though as Hershey has since decommissioned their fleet of Kissmobiles in 2020.
Dairy Queen Blizzardmobile
Back in 2010, Dairy Queen launched their Blizzardmobile in celebration of 25 years of the Blizzard treat. This Dairy Queen branded food truck travelled around North America distributing free Mini Blizzards while also raising awareness and donations for Children’s Miracle Network. The Blizzardmobile retains its food truck shape for the most part, but its roof has been given the distinct design of the top of a Blizzard cup while the truck’s wrap emulates the same design found on the outside of the Blizzard cup too. Dairy Queen also added multiple giant red spoons, upside down Blizzard cups for the side mirrors, and the red lips from those old DQ commercials over the front grille.
Outspan Orange
Outspan Oranges was a South African sourced oranges brand that was popular predominantly around Europe. To promote the fruit, Outspan took five Mini Coopers in 1972 and completely revised them to fit a 48-inch wheelbase – which is over 30 inches shorter than a traditional ‘70s era Mini. On top of this revised design was a carefully constructed metal orange featuring intricate dimples throughout and the green leafy bit at the top. These cars travelled throughout Europe as a promotional stunt for the fruit brand, but had to be driven at low speeds as they were known to roll over when exceeding speeds of 30 mph.
Cadbury Creme Eggs
Cadbury Creme Eggs are those fun little chocolate eggs you can find around easter time here in the States. Over in Britain they’re a bigger deal and available all year long, so it’s no wonder Cadbury decided to produce five Cadbury Creme Egg cars back in the ‘90s. The company took Bedford Rascals, also known as the Suzuki Super Carry, and completely discarded their original bodies in favor of giant fiberglass eggs. This unique egg shape utilized custom dual front windscreens and only featured a door on the left side of the vehicle. Cadbury had the cars on display at Cadbury World after their promotional tour ended, but they have since transferred hands to a private party who has restored them to their peak glory as of 2022.
Birds Eye Pea Car
Asylum is a special effects company based out of London that specializes in practical effects for film and television. The company was approached by the frozen vegetable brand Birds Eye to help in creating a pea car for a commercial. Asylum crafted a specialized chassis from an off-road purposed go-kart frame that carried a Honda engine in the rear capable of pushing this food shaped car to 60 mph. That chassis was surrounded by various fiberglass shell pieces that formed the exterior green pea shape. This shell design was built to intentionally fall apart as it drove in the commercial so that they could compare it against a fresh, put together version at the end that was delivered via a Birds Eye transporter.
Lindt Goldbunny
Lindt is known for producing gourmet chocolates with one of those products being their Gold Bunny. While this treat is primarily only seen around the Easter holiday, the company decided to use it as a promotional centerpiece on the road. Lindt took the Gold Bunny’s likeness and put them on a series of Smart Fortwo cars. These Smart cars carried a gold exterior, the Gold Bunny’s face and red scarf, Lindt branding, and two big rabbit ears sprouting out the top of the vehicle. They’ve been seen in parades, at Easter events, and even at Lindt’s citywide Golden Bunny hunts around the world.
Peeps Peepster
Peeps is another Easter focused treat that’s had some car fund with their product. The Peeps Peepsters are three bright yellow Volkswagen Beetles that carry a giant Peep on their roofs. The first model was produced back in 2003, but two more examples joined the fleet in 2012 to help spread Peeps fun around North America. While the Peepsters haven’t been on an official tour in a while, you can still see them pop up on the brand’s social media from time to time.
Red Bull MINI Cooper
While it’s a stretch to call this “food shaped”, it’s hard not to mention the Red Bull Mini Coopers when you’re talking product promotion vehicles. These customized Mini Coopers were given a Red Bull vinyl wrap, carry a giant can of Red Bull on top, and have been chopped to create a trucklike appearance. Instead of a bed like a normal truck though, these Red Bull cars feature coolers filled with Red Bull Energy drinks. If you ever came across one of these out in the wild, you could walk right up and grab a drink out of those coolers for free! It wasn’t too rare to run into these cars either as 500 were produced specifically for Red Bull to promote all over the world.
