The Most Wonderful Car in Chicago: Harold's Chickenmobile

Years ago Harold Pierce, the founder of Harold's Chicken Shack, would sometimes drive around in a white Cadillac decorated like a chicken. Or so the story goes. I've been looking for a picture of that car without success (anyone know where I can find one?). A successor to Harold's Caddy can now be seen cruising the streets of Chicago. It's heartening to see a new generation carrying on the great Chicken Shack traditions.



Harold's Chicken Shack #21
6843 S Ashland Av
Chicago
773-778-9890

Nice picture ReneG. It's interesting that you posted it today because over the weekend, I saw the corporatized, low-carbon-footprint, yuppified version of the same thing. It's interesting that I also feel the difference in the food between the two places whose cars are pictured to be much the same as the difference in the cars themselves.

Isn't that a rooster? A roostermobile?

In any case, that is one hot car. I love how the chicken/rooster looks menacing.

stevez wrote:

Funny. The Hannah's Bretzel car is a familiar sight to me. I used to take a class in River North, and I think someone with the company car used to pick up one of my classmates because the car was always parked right outside when class let out. It was a late class after a long work day and a skipped dinner, and more than a few times I wished very much that the car was there for me...with sandwiches.

Not the most wonderful car in Chicago, but I kind of like the idea of collecting these in a thread...

Well, then, we must have this:

I was looking through Bob Schwartz's Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog (fun book!) and noticed a picture of another wienermobile. Mel's serves Chicago-style Vienna hot dogs in Tampa. Have a look at their VW:

http://flickr.com/photos/23302210@N05/2250785516

Rene G wrote:I was looking through Bob Schwartz's Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog (fun book!) and noticed a picture of another wienermobile. Mel's serves Chicago-style Vienna hot dogs in Tampa. Have a look at their VW:

http://flickr.com/photos/23302210@N05/2250785516

Mel's wienermobile has a schnoz like my uncle Sid.

Rene G wrote:Years ago Harold Pierce, the founder of Harold's Chicken Shack, would sometimes drive around in a white Cadillac decorated like a chicken. Or so the story goes. I've been looking for a picture of that car without success (anyone know where I can find one?). A successor to Harold's Caddy can now be seen cruising the streets of Chicago. It's heartening to see a new generation carrying on the great Chicken Shack traditions.



Harold's Chicken Shack #21
6843 S Ashland Av
Chicago
773-778-9890

wish I had a picture, but the Harold's car used to be a hearse with a very similar rooster on top. That hearse went to a strange car rental place in a moderately seedy Indianapolis neighborhood, and I used it for a now infamous (you'll have to ask RCA Dome security why) tailgating party before a Colts game.

Kennyz wrote:wish I had a picture, but the Harold's car used to be a hearse with a very similar rooster on top.

Your mention of the Harold's hearse made me think of the profession-specific coffins made in Ghana.

From Fortune Small Business Magazine, February 2005:


Here's a brief National Geographic video about Ghanaian coffins that includes a shot of a chili pepper one.

Sharon-- lovely idea.

I have no picture of it but there's a wonderful car in Evanston that is often parked in the lot behind Good's of Evanston on Main Street, an art-supply store. It's a BMW 2002-style 4-door painted tangerine with dozens of large metal springs welded all over the body. I'm surprised it doesn't get pulled off the road for some infraction or other. Has anyone else seen this car?
Food-related: I also used to see it parked near the old location of Dave's Italian Kitchen.

Josephine wrote:I have no picture of it but there's a wonderful car in Evanston that is often parked in the lot behind Good's of Evanston on Main Street, an art-supply store. It's a BMW 2002-style 4-door painted tangerine with dozens of large metal springs welded all over the body. I'm surprised it doesn't get pulled off the road for some infraction or other. Has anyone else seen this car?

The springs car sounds vaguely familiar to me; I think I may have seen it once. I have wondered though about the potential infractions for such cars. With, for example, the Chickenmobile, might it obstruct the vision of other drivers? Not more than a small- to medium-sized truck, I imagine... Of course, one of the foodmobiles that comes most often to my mind is Dali's Rolls Royce filled with cauliflower, which he drove to the Sorbonne in 1955. I've searched and searched for an image of this car to no avail, finding not even, say, a cartoon rendering in the New Yorker or something like that. Mike Wallace asked Dali about the car but got only a brief answer about the "logarithmic curve of cauliflower."

happy_stomach wrote:I have wondered though about the potential infractions for such cars.

When Mel tailgates in his VW (see above) he risks arrest for vehicular sodomy. Fortunately they're lenient about such things in Tampa.

Mike G wrote:Well, then, we must have this:

I missed it when it was current news but last month the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashed into a Wisconsin house. Insert your own joke here.

Getting back to the original topic—chickenmobiles, here's a picture of Krekel's Cadillac from Decatur IL, discussed in another thread.

Rene G wrote:I missed it when it was current news but last month the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashed into a Wisconsin house. Insert your own joke here.

At least it was just a house.





FTR, there were about 10 Wienermobiles in rotation a few years ago. My now b-i-l drove one when he was an intern for Kraft. He got it stuck often and bounced it off a lot of solid objects, just like he does to this day with his regular car.

Krekel's rooster and Harold's rooster appear to be the same, with slightly different paint schemes. I don't know why, but it cracks me up to think that someone has a business fabricating chickens for cars. God Bless America.