PETA Promises To Pay For Wienermobile’s Stolen Parts If It Becomes Vegan

Wiener, wiener… vegan dinner?

Ahead of the Super Bowl Weekend, greedy thieves struck Oscar Mayer’s classic ‘Wienermobile’ while it was parked outside a motel in Las Vegas.  They wolfed down, with their hands, the vehicle’s catalytic converter.

The 27-foot-long hotdog on wheels was later sent to a local repair shop, where it received a temporary replacement, before returning as a sight to savor at its stipulated tour stops.

The catalytic converter is a core part of a car’s emissions system. However, it often gets stolen as it also contains precious metals, like platinum, palladium, and rhodium, that can be sold for cash.

As per 8NewsNow.com, it can take up to two months to obtain a permanent catalytic converter for the Wienermobile. And even when the devices are in, fixing them to the truck might be cumbersome. Joseph Rodriguez, a parts administrator for the workshop where the Wienermobile got its top-up, explains that you’d still have to get through the gaskets and heat sensors to reseal the converter, since those parts were also ripped off to get to the motherlode.

Animal rights nonprofit PETA has just made a juicy offer to cover the costs of the new catalytic converter—in addition to maintaining the Wienermobile for a full year—on one condition: Oscar Mayer has to “convert” (its word) the Wienermobile into a vegan, wheeled hot dog.

In a letter to Kraft Heinz, the activism group points to consumers’ growing interest in the plant-based foods market, including vegan sausages. In fact, PETA acknowledges, Oscar Mayer itself is working on ‘Not Hot Dogs’ with vegan food tech startup TheNotCompany.

“Now is the perfect time to put the brakes on an old idea and make a shift,” PETA writes.

“Frankly, we want everyone to consider that they now have options, whether they’re vegan for ethical, environmental, health, religious, or other reasons or they just want to try a vegan hot dog,” the organization elaborates. “Since Americans’ appetite for cruelty-free foods is only growing, we hope you’ll relish this opportunity to ketchup with the trend by having at least one veggie dog mobile.”

Now, it’s up to Oscar Mayer to take the bite.

[via AZFamily and 8NewsNow.com, cover photo 52320806 © Jerry Coli | Dreamstime.com]