Hot dog (pronounced hot-dawg)
(1) A frankfurter.
(2) A sandwich consisting of a frankfurter (or some sort of sausage of similar shape) in a split
roll, eaten usually with (1) mustard, sauerkraut & relish or (2) mustard
& ketchup.
(3) Someone who performs complex, showy, and sometimes
dangerous manoeuvres, especially in surfing or skiing (hotdogging sometimes a defined
class in competition).
(4) Someone thought a show-off, especially in sporting
competition.
(5) In informal use, an expression of joy, admiration or
delight (occasionally also used ironically in the manner of “that’s great”).
(6) In New Zealand, a battered, deep-fried sausage or
saveloy on a stick (essentially the same concept as the US corn dog and the
Australian Dagwood dog).
(7) In slang, the human penis, a variation of which is
the “man sausage”.
(8) In slang, a sexually suggestive physical gesture
involving hip movement (usually as hotdogging).
1894: A coining in US English for commercial purposes,
the idea being the vague resemblance of the sausage to a dachshund dog, the “hot”
from the traditional use of mustard as a condiment although there’s evidence
the early suspicion some hot dogs included actual canine meat weren’t entirely
without foundation. The use as (1) an
interjection expressing joy, admiration or delight was another US creation
dating from around the turn of the twentieth century (the circumstances
unknown) and (2) a descriptor of someone who performs showy, often dangerous
stunts was also an Americanism from the same era. It seems to have begin in sport and is still widely
used but has become best known for its use in skiing and surfing where it’s
institutionalized to the extent some competitive categories have been named
thus. The variation “hot diggety dog”
(also clipped to “hot diggety” was used in the same sense as the interjection “hot
dog”, the interpolated “diggety” there for emphasis and rhetorical effect. The slang synonyms (mostly in the US and not
applied exclusively to hot dogs) have included “tubular meat on a bun”, “frank”,
“frankfurt”, “frankfurter”, “glizzy”, “pimp steak”, “tube steak”, “wiener”, “weeny”,
“ballpark frank”, “cheese coney”, “cheese dog”, “Chicago-style”, “Chicago dog”,
“chili dog”, “Coney Island”, “corndog”, “footlong”, “junkyard dog”, “not dog”, “pig
in a blanket”, “steamie” “veggie dog” & “frankfurter in a bun”. In informal use, both single word
contractions (hotdog) and hyphenated forms (hot-dog, hot-dogger etc) are common
and “hot dog!” as an interjection is heard in the US, especially south of the
Mason-Dixon Line.
The construct was hot + dog. Hot was from the Middle English hot & hat, from the Old English hāt,
from the Proto-Germanic haitaz (hot),
from the primitive Indo-European kay-
(hot; to heat) and was cognate with the Scots hate & hait (hot), the
North Frisian hiet (hot), the Saterland
Frisian heet (hot), the West Frisian hjit (hot), the Dutch heet (hot), the Low German het (hot), the German Low German heet (hot), the German heiß (hot), the Danish hed (hot), the Swedish het (hot) and the Icelandic heitur (hot). Dog was from the Middle English dogge (source also of the Scots dug (dog)), from the Old English dogga & docga of uncertain origin.
Interestingly, the original sense appears to have been of a “common dog”
(as opposed one well-bred), much as “cur” was later used and there’s evidence
it was applied especially to stocky dogs of an unpleasing appearance. Etymologists have pondered the origin: It may have been a pet-form diminutive with the
suffix -ga (the similar models being compare
frocga (frog) & picga (pig), appended to a base dog-, or
doc-(the origin and meaning of these unclear). Another possibility is Old
English dox (dark, swarthy) (a la frocga from frog) while some have suggested a link to the Proto-West Germanic dugan (to be suitable), the origin of
Old English dugan (to be good, worthy, useful), the English dow and the German
taugen; the theory is based on the idea that it could have been a child’s epithet
for dogs, used in the sense of “a good or helpful animal”. Few support that and more are persuaded there
may be some relationship with docce (stock, muscle), from the Proto-West
Germanic dokkā (round mass, ball, muscle, doll), from which English gained dock
(stumpy tail). In fourteenth century
England, hound (from the Old English hund)
was the general word applied to all domestic canines while dog referred to some
sub-types (typically those close in appearance to the modern mastiff and
bulldog. By the sixteenth century, dog
had displaced hound as the general word descriptor. The latter coming to be
restricted to breeds used for hunting and in the same era, the word dog was
adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff. Unmodified, the English Hot Dog has been
borrowed by dozens of languages. Hot dog
is a noun, verb & adjective, hotdoggery & hotdogger are nouns,
hotdogging & hotdogged are verbs; the noun plural is hot dogs.
The corn-dog (a frankfurter dipped in cornmeal batter, fried,
and served on a stick), although the process was patented in 1927, seems to
have come into existence between 1938-1942 (the sources differ with most preferring the latter) but it received
a lexicographical imprimatur of when it began to appear in dictionaries in 1949
and it was certainly on sale (then as the “corny dog”) at the 1942 Texas State
Fair. In Australia, the local variation
of the US corn dog is the Dagwood dog (a batter-covered hot dog sausage, deep
fried in batter, dipped in tomato sauce and eaten off a wooden stick), not to
be confused with the “battered sav”, a saveloy deep fried in a wheat
flour-based batter (as used for fish and chips and which usually doesn’t contain
cornmeal). The Dagwood Dog was named
after a character in the American comic strip Blondie. Dagwood, Blondie’s ineptly comical husband, did
have a dog albeit not one especially sausage-like and it may simply have been
it was at the time the country’s best known or most popular cartoon dog.
After leaving Downing Street, Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) visited Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1969-1969) in the White House and was served lunch, a meal the former prime-minister found so remarkable that in his six-volume memoirs it warranted a rare exclamation mark: "Hotdogs!" He didn’t comment further but it’s assumed his experience of the culinary treat must have been the Old Etonian’s first and last. The hot dog certainly can be political, David Cameron (b 1966; UK prime-minister 2010-2016 and another Old Etonian) attracting derision after being photographed eating his hot dog with knife and fork, something declared “out-of-touch” by the tabloid press which, while usually decrying the class system, doesn’t miss a chance to scorn toffs behaving too well or chavs too badly. Cameron had other problems with takeaway snacks, caught being untruthful about his history of enjoying Cornish pasties, another working class favourite. So it would seem for politicians, hot dogs are compulsory but only if eaten in acceptable chav style.
Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) and David Cameron eating hot dogs (both in approved manner) at a college basketball game between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, Dayton Arena, Ohio, March 2012 (Western Kentucky won 59-56) (left) and UK Labour Party politician Ed Miliband (b 1969) enjoying what came to be known as "the notorious bacon sandwich moment", May 2014 (right). Mr Miliband didn't attend Eton and some of his high school education was undertaken in the US so presumably he knows how to handle a hot dog. If so, he has no excuse because a toastie is less challenging.
Curiously, Mr Cameron, had some three years earlier undergone "hot dog eating training", supervised by President Obama, noted for his expertise (both theoretical and practical) in the subject. So he knew how it should be done and immediately there was speculation he resorted to knife & fork to avoid any chance of something like Ed Miliband's "notorious bacon sandwich moment", something which had resulted in ridicule and a flood of memes after the photograph was published in Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) tabloid The Sun on the eve of the 2015 general election.
Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 2022-2025) enjoying a Dagwood Dog (in approved bogan manner), Brisbane Exhibition (Ekka), Australia, 2022 (left) and Lena Katina (b 1984) sucking on a popsicle (band-mate Julia Volkova (b 1985) looking sceptical) in a publicity shot for t.A.T.u., Moscow, 2002 (right).
On seeing the photo, Mr Dutton observed of such things: "There is no good angle" and one can see his point but he need not be apologetic about his technique because, as Ms Katina demonstrated, his method was immaculate. Looking damnably like a neon-green hotdog, the shapes of the two snacks essentially are identical so they're eaten in a similar manner. In Australia, it’s probably good for a politician to be known to eat Dagwood dogs but not necessarily be photographed mid-munch. Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason. Promoted as a pair of lesbian schoolgirls, t.A.T.u. (1999-2011) was a Russian pop cum electronica act, best remembered for being denied their deserved victory in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest because of obvious irregularities in the voting; that the duo were neither lesbians nor schoolgirls was not the point. Music critics and political scientists all agree Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) was probably a (secret) fan and it may be even comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) might have enjoyed the tunes; he liked music he could whistle and t.A.T.u.'s melodic qualities would have appealed. On the basis of their political views, comrade Stalin might (while whistling along) have sent them to the Lubyanka (the old KGB headquarters on Moscow's Lubyanka Square) or the Gulag but never would he have accused them of formalism.
The Dagwood dog was responsible for an amusing footnote in Australian legal history, a dispute from the 1949 Sydney Royal Easter Show played out in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in its equity jurisdiction, the press reports at the time noting one happy outcome being an “uninterrupted supply of hot dogs during the next few days.” Hot dogs were one of the show’s big sellers but a dispute arose when allegations were made there had been breaches of letters patent for "improvements in sausage goods" giving the patentees (who sold “Pronto Pups”) "exclusive enjoyment and profit within Australia for sixteen years from September, 1946. The plaintiffs (holders of the patent), sought an injunction against those who had begun selling “Dagwood Dogs" at the show, preventing them from vending or supplying any of the improvements in sausages described in the patent, the writ claiming Dagwood dogs embodied the patented improvements and that as a consequence of the infringement, the plaintiffs were suffering economic loss. The trial judge, ordered a hearing for an assessment (a taking of accounts) of damages to be scheduled for the following April and issued a temporary order requiring the defendants undertook to pay into a trust account the sum of ½d (half a penny) for each for each axially penetrated sausage sold. The culinary delight has since been a fixture at city and country shows around the country although the name Pronto Pup didn’t survive; after the judgment in the Supreme Court it was replaced by “Pluto Pup” which also didn’t last although whether that was a consequence of a C&D (“cease & desist letter”) from Walt Disney’s lawyers isn’t known. Anyway, since then it’s been Dagwood dogs all the way except in South Australia (proud of their convict-free past, they often do things differently) where they’re knows as “Dippy Dogs” (an allusion to the generous dip in the tomato sauce pot) which may be of Canadian origin, although there. in at least some provinces, they’re sold as “Pogos”.
Robert Mitchum (1917–1997) paying attention to what Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) is saying.
There are a number of “hot dog” stories about the film star Robert Mitchum, all told in the vein of him arriving at a Hollywood fancy-dress party covered in tomato ketchup and when asked to explain replying: “I’m a hot dawg!”. That was representative of the sanitized form in which the tale was usually published, the original apparently involved the ketchup being applied to something which, anatomically, more resembled the hot dog’s sausage.
Zimbabwe's T20 cricket team, winners of the inaugural Women's T20 cricket tournament at the 13th African Games, Accra, Ghana, March 2024.
The industry legend is the “Hotdog Stand” color scheme Microsoft in 1992 shipped with Windows 3.1 was the winner of an informal contest between the designers to see who could concoct the worst possible combination. Whether or not the competition was alcohol-fueled depends on which version of the story is told but all agree the winner based her entry on a vision of a hot dog, smothered in mustard and ketchup. It’s doubtful many deliberately chose “Hotdog Stand” as their default scheme although there were certainly sysadmins (system administrators) who vengefully would impose it on annoying users, the more vindictive adding insult to injury by ensuring the user couldn’t change it back. However, Hotdog Stand did briefly find a niche because it turned out to be the scheme which provided the best contrast on certain monochrome monitors, then still prevalent in corporations. Windows 3.1 was the first version of the environment (it ran on the PC/MS/DR-DOS operating system) to attain wide corporate acceptance, whereas Windows 3.0 (1990) had tantalized while being still too unstable. Windows 3.0 was unusual in being (apart from the short-lived 1.0) the only version of Windows released in a single version. Although it ran in three modes: Real (on machines with only 640K RAM), Standard (requiring an 80286 CPU & 1 MB RAM) and Enhanced (requiring an 80386 CPU & 2 MB RAM), it shipped as a single product, the user with a command line switch (/r, /s or /e respectively) able to "force" the mode of choice, depending on the hardware in use. Real mode didn't make it into Windows 3.1 and v3.11 ran exclusively as "Enhanced" so, in a sense, "Enhanced" had become standard.
2016 Maserati GranTurismo MC.
Microsoft's Hotdog Stand scheme didn’t survive the August 1995 transition to Windows 95 but a quarter of a century on, someone may have felt nostalgic because a buyer of a 2016 Maserati GranTurismo MC configured their car in bright yellow (Giallo Granturismo) over leather trim in red (Rosso Corallo). As eye-catching in 2016 as Microsoft's Hotdog Stand had been in 1992, the Maserati’s recommended retail price was US$163,520. Displayed first at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show, the GranTurismo (Tipo M145) remained in production until 2019, the MC Sport Line offered between 2012-2019; it's not known how many buyers chose this color combination. The OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) wheels were all-black but on this MC were replaced with two-tone 21 & 22 inch Forgiato S201 ECL units in black and yellow on which were mounted Pirelli P Zero tyres (255/30-21 front & 315/25-22 rear). Finishing the wheels in red and yellow might nicely have augmented the hot dog vibe but between the spokes Maserati's red brake calipers can be seen. For the right buyer, this was the perfect package.
It’s drawing a long bow but the vivid combo may have be picked as a tribute to the Maserati 250F with which Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995) won the 1957 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, an epic drive and his most famous. Fangio was Scuderia Alfieri Maserati’s team leader and a splash of yellow was added to the nosecone of his 250F so easily it could be identified, the color chosen because it was one of the two allocated to his native Argentina. The 250Fs of the other team members also had nosecones painted in accordance with the original international auto racing colours standardized early in the century, American Harry Schell (1921–1960) in white and Frenchman Jean Behra (1921–1959), blue, all atop the factory’s traditional Italian red.
Chart of the standard semaphore alphabet (top left), a pair of semaphore flags (bottom left) and Lindsay Lohan practicing her semaphore signaling (just in case the need arises and this is the letter “U”), 32nd birthday party, Mykonos, Greece, July, 2018 (right).
Semaphore flags are not always red and yellow, but the colors are close to a universal standard, especially in naval and international signalling. There was no intrinsic meaning denoted by the use of red 7 yellow, the hues chosen for their contrast and visual clarity, something important in maritime environments or other outdoor locations when light could often be less than ideal although importantly, the contrast was sustained even in bright sunshine. Because semaphore often was used for ship-to-to ship signalling, the colors had to be not only easily distinguishable at a distance but not be subject to “melting” or “blending”, a critical factor when used on moving vessels in often pitching conditions, the operator’s moving arms adding to the difficulties. In naval and maritime semaphore systems, the ICS (International Code of Signals) standardized full-solid red and yellow for the flags but variants do exist (red, white, blue & black seem popular) and these can be created for specific conditions, for a particular cultural context or even as promotional items.
L-I-N-D-S-A-Y-space-L-O-H-A-N spelled-out in ICS (International Code of Signals) semaphore. One cannot predict when this knowledge will come in handy.
Green & yellow alternatives: Saint Patrick's Day hot dog (left) and vegan hotdog (right).
Although the ketchup and mustard combination is most associated with the hot dog, not all hot dogs are in a theme of red & yellow, the most common alternative formations being green & yellow. Some of these are seasonal and created for the cultural & religious holiday celebrated as Lá Fhéile Pádraig (literally “the Day of the Festival of Patrick” and often described as the “Feast of Saint Patrick”) which marks the death of Saint Patrick (circa 385–circa 461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland and missionary who converted the Island from paganism to Christianity. Others are usually vegetarian or vegan hot dogs and green components, while not essential, often are added as a form of virtue-signaling.
1981 Chevrolet Corvette: 190 horsepower (HP).
The 2016 Maserati GranTurismo was certainly distinctive but strange color-combos are sometimes seen although in recent decades, factories have restricted not only the ranges offered but also the way they can be combined. The 1981 Chevrolet Corvette (above) definitely didn’t leave the assembly line in yellow & green; that season, yellow (code 52) was available but there was no green on the color chart and while two-tone paint was a US$399.00 option, the only choices were Silver/Dark Blue (code 33/38); Silver/Charcoal (code 33/39); Beige/Dark Bronze (code 50/74) & Autumn Red/Dark Claret (code 80/98). After taking in the effect of the yellow/green combo, the camel leather trim (code 64C/642) seems anti-climatic.
2025 John Deere 9900 Self-Propelled Forage Harvester: 956 HP.
Modern harvesters are machines of extraordinary efficiency, one able in an hour to reap more than what would once have taken a large team of workers more than a day. Mechanized harvesters were an early example of the way technology displaces labor at scale and because historically women were always a significant part of the harvesting workforce, they were at least as affected as men. The development meant one machine operator and his (and they were almost exclusively men) machine could replace even dozens of workers, something which profoundly changed rural economies, the participation of the workforce engaged in agriculture and triggered the re-distribution of the population to urban settlements. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest innovation in technology applied to agriculture as just a one operator + machine combo replaced dozens of workers, multiple machines now go about harvesting with an AI bot handling the control and a dozen or more of these machines can be under the supervision of a single individual sitting somewhere on the planet, not so much controlling the things and monitoring for errors and problems. Removing the on-site human involvement means it becomes possible to harvest (or otherwise work the fields) 24/7/365 without concerns about intrusions like light, the weather or toilet breaks. Of course people remain involved to do tasks such as repairs, refueling and such but AI taking over many of these roles may be only a matter of time.
Maybe the Corvette's repaint was ordered by a fan of John Deere’s highly regarded farm equipment because JD’s agricultural products are always finished in a two-tone yellow/green (their construction equipment being black & yellow). For the 1981 Corvette, a single engine was offered in all 50 states, a 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) small-block V8 designated L81 which was rated at the same 190 HP (142 kW) as the previous season’s base L48; no high-output version was now available but the L81 could be had with either a manual or automatic transmission (it would prove to be the last C3 Corvette offered with a manual). Glumly though that drive-train might have been viewed by some who remembered the tyre-smoking machines of a decade-odd earlier, it would have pleased buyers in California because in 1980 their Corvettes received only the 305 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8 found often in pick-up trucks, station wagons and other utilitarian devices; to them the L81 was an improvement and one which seemed to deliver more than the nominal 10 HP gain would have suggested. The L81’s 190 HP certainly wouldn’t impress those in the market for John Deere’s 9900 Self-Propelled Forage Harvester, powered by a 1465 cubic inch (24 litre) Liebherr V12, rated at 956 HP (713 kW), the machine available only in the corporate two-tone yellow & green. Like Corvettes (which have tended to be quite good at their intended purpose and pretty bad at just about everything else), harvesters are specific purpose machines; one which is a model of efficiency at gathering one crop will be hopelessly inept with another and in that they differ from the human workforce which is more adaptable. However, where there is some similarity in the plants, it can be possible for the one basic machine to be multi-purpose, the role changed by swapping the attachable device which does the actual picking or gathering.
1955 Studebaker Speedster (of the 2,215 Speedsters, a solid 763 were finished in the eye-catching combination of Hialeah Green & Sun Valley Yellow, left) and some ingredients for chef Jennifer Segal's (b 1974) succotash in cast iron skillet while in the throes of preparation (right). Ms Segal’s succotash may be the finest in the world.
Lest anyone think a green and yellow Corvette is just a uniquely 1980s lapse of taste, in previous decades, in fashion and on the highways, things were often more colourful than the impression left by so much of the monochrome and sepia prevalent in the photographic record until later in the twentieth century. With roots in a family business which in the late eighteenth century began building horse-drawn wagons, following a near-bankruptcy during the Great Depression (the corporation saved by the financial skills of Lehman Brothers (1850-2008), Studebaker emerged from World War II (1939-1945) in good financial shape and was the first US auto-maker to release a genuinely new range of post-war models, the style of which would remain influential for a decade. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the company’s next twenty years were troubled and by the mid-1960s were out of the car business, something which at the time surprised few, the only curiosity being it “…took an unconscionable time a-dying”.
There were though in those final years a few memorable flourishes, one of which was the 1955 Speedster, produced for just one season as a flagship. It was a blinged-up version of the President State hardtop coupe, part of a range which at the time was praised for its Italianesque lines and had it be able to be sold at a more competitive price, it may have survived to remain longer in the catalogue. In 1955, all Studebaker’s passenger vehicles benefited from a lavish (even by Detroit’s mid-1950s standards) application of chrome and the Speedster’s front bumper is strikingly similar in shape to the “rubber bumper” added in 1974 to the MGB (1962-1980) as a quick and dirty solution to meet US front-impact regulations; it’s doubtful British Leyland’s stylists were influenced by the sight of the Speedster.
1979 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith II in Champagne & Highland Green over color-coordinated leather.
Such was the American fondness for the “John Deere vibe” that at least one American buyer ordered a Rolls-Royce in the yellow-green combo (Champagne & Highland Green on the R-R color chart). Re-using the name from the saloon (1946-1958) which was the first post-war Rolls-Royce (and the last of its six-cylinder cars), the Silver Wraith II (1976-1980) was a long-wheelbase (LWB) version of the Silver Shadow (1965-1980), the company’s first car to abandon the traditional chassis and use a unitary body. Introduced in 1976 as a companion of the revised Silver Shadow II, the “LWB Silver Shadow” concept was not new because the factory had since 1967 built such things, the model added to the general production schedule in 1969. The additional 4 inches (100 mm) in length was allocated wholly to the rear compartment so the legroom was greater although if the optional divider was fitted this was sacrificed to the structure and the space was the same as a Silver Shadow. Rolls-Royce had before re-named what was essentially an existing model, the Corniche (1971-1995) a re-branding of the two-door (saloon (coupé) & DHC (drophead coupé, the factory later joining the rest of the planet and naming the convertibles)) versions of the Sliver Shadow which were between 1965-1971 built by MPW (Mulliner Park Ward) (the count: 571 Rolls-Royce saloons & 506 convertibles and 98 Bentley saloons & 41 convertibles). The Everflex (an expensive, heavy-duty vinyl) covering on the Silver Wraith II’s roof was an aesthetic choice (the vinyl roof inexplicably popular in the era) and not a way of disguising seams in the metal. Unlike some coach-builders which extended sedans to become limousines and hid the welds with vinyl, Rolls-Royce did things to a higher standard.
If offered for sale in the US, this particular Silver Wraith II might appeal to supporters of sporting teams which use the green-yellow combo for the players' kit. That includes the Green Bay Packers, a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference's (NFC) North division. Established in 1919, the Packers are the NFL's third-oldest franchise and are unusual to the point of uniqueness in being the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the US, holding the record for the most wins in NFL history. There is also the Oregon Ducks, the University of Oregon's college football team, which competes at National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I level in the Football Bowl Sub-division (FBS) and is a member of the Big Ten Conference (B1G). Unfortunately, the team is no longer known as the Webfoots, the Ducks moniker adopted in the mid-1960s. The green & yellow of the Ducks has some prominence in the sportswear market because of a close association with Oregon-based manufacturer Nike.
Joey Chestnut (b 1983) (left) and Miki Sudo (b 1986) (right) the reigning men's and women's world champions in hot dog eating. The contest is conducted annually on 4 July, US Independence Day.
In July 2022, Mr Chestnut retained and Ms Sudo regained their titles as world champions in hot dog eating. Mr Chestnut consumed 15 more than the runner-up so the victory was decisive although his total of 63 was short of his personal best (PB) of 76, set in 2021. It’s his fifteenth title and he has now won all but one of the last sixteen. Ms Sudo won her eighth championship, swallowing forty hot dogs (including the bun) in the requisite ten minutes, meaning she has now prevailed in eight of the last nine contests (in 2021 she was unable to defend her title, being with child and therefore thinking it best to avoid too many hot dogs). That there are hot dog eating champions brings delight to some and despair to others.
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) famously observed that people "shouldn't see how laws or sausages are made". The processes (now effectively institutionalized) which produce legislation are now more disturbing even than in the iron chancellor's gut-wrenching times but sausage production has (generally) become more hygienic.
BMW's venture into the "hotdog look", the K1.
Between 1988–1993, BMW produced almost 7,000 K1s. It was a modest volume and lifespan but the appearance and specification were quite a departure for the company which for sixty-odd years had built its reputation with air-cooled flat twins, packaged in designs which while functionally efficient offered few concessions to fashion. That began to change in 1973 when the R90S appeared with a small bikini fairing in the style then favored by the “café racer” set but the rest of the machine remained in the sober Teutonic tradition, finished in a conservative silver (a more exuberant “Daytona Orange” would later be offered). The fairings grew in size in subsequent models but never before the K1 did the factory produce anything so enveloping as was first seen at the 1988 Cologne Show, the effect heighted by the bold graphics and the choice of color schemes being blue & yellow or a hotdog-like red & yellow. Inevitably, the latter's eye-catching combo picked up the nickname Ketchup und Senf (Ketchup and Mustard) but on BMW’s color chart they were listed as Marakeschrot (Marrakesh Red, code 222) and Ginstergelb (Broom Yellow, code 230). The “broom” referenced is the shrub plant (related and visually similar to gorse) with distinctive, bright yellow flowers, not the device used for sweeping. The look attracted almost as much comment as the mechanical specification which used an in-line four cylinder, 987 cm3 (60 cubic inch) liquid-cooled engine, mounted in an unusual longitudinal arrangement with the crankshaft to the right, something which delivered a low centre of gravity and contributed to the drag coefficient (CD) of .34 (with rider prone).
The original alternative to the hotdog, in blue & yellow, restrained by comparison.
The engineering was innovative and the K1 garnered many awards but after some initial enthusiasm sales waned and in 1991 the color scheme was not so much toned-down as re-toned, a more Germanic look (black metallic with silver wheels) offered which was less distinctive but also less controversial. That solved one aesthetic challenge but others were more fundamental, the thing too big and heavy to be a “sports bike” in the accepted sense and all that fibreglass meant it could get very hot for both components and rider, a problem the factory, with some improvised engineering, ameliorated but never wholly solved. What couldn’t be fixed was the lack of power, BMW at the time committed to the voluntary 100 HP (75 kW) limit for motorcycles sold in Germany and while the industry leading aerodynamics made the machine a creditable high-speed cruiser, as a “super-bike” in the manner of the Japanese and Italian machines, it simply wasn’t competitive; fifty years on, at least on two wheels, power dynamics within the Axis had shifted south and east.
