Spot a 27-foot-long hot dog on I-75? Oscar Mayer's Wienermobile is in metro Detroit.

You'd never guess how much a huge Fiberglas hot dog on wheels can brighten people's day. Frankly, it's un-bun-lievable.

But said by none other than Hammy Sammy himself: There's no better way to keep from becoming a chili dog than warm smiles on a chilly day.

Every year, a dozen Hotdoggers tour the country in six Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles, doing "meat-and-greets" to spread the Oscar Mayer magic and gleaning double takes and dropped jaws from unsuspecting onlookers. Now onto the Midwest leg, Sam "Hammy Sammy" Dlott, Samantha "Sammer Sausage" Benish, and the Wienermobile have stops in metro Detroit this weekend.

"It's been fun being in the Midwest because I'm from Wisconsin originally, so getting to experience places that I would normally go to with the Wienermobile makes it a little bit more magical," said Benish.

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The first Wienermobile dates to 1936 but has evolved greatly through the years (the 1952 model sits at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn). Now the relished vehicle is 11 feet tall, 27 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 14,050 pounds — or 24 hot dogs high, 60 hot dogs long, 18 hot dogs wide, and weighs as much as 140,050 hot dogs. The inside has six mustard- and ketchup-colored seats to sit up to 12 buns, a hot dog-shaped dashboard, a removable bun-roof, a ketchup walkway, and an official Wiener Jingle horn. Plus, it can store up to 11,000 iconic Wiener Whistles.

"I love that the seat next to the driver is called 'shot-bun.' I love that we don't have a sunroof, we have a 'bun-roof.' We don't have seatbelts, we have 'meat-belts,'" said Dlott. "But my favorite detail of the inside is that there are blue skies on the ceiling, so even on a day like today there's always blue skies inside the Wienermobile, and for us as drivers, that's just such a great reminder that every day we get to go out and make magic and make people smile."

However, the yearlong nationwide tours didn't begin until 1988; with less than 450 Hotdoggers since its beginning, there have been more people in space than behind the wheel of the Wienermobile.

Each year, 12 college students or recent grads are chosen from thousands of applicants — this year there were 7,000. The lucky dogs go to Hot Dog High for two weeks of training and 40 hours of Wienermobile driver's training, practicing on a closed course with retired police officers to learn how to drive such a large vehicle, to earn their "dog-gree."

Then they hit the road: driving the dog, sleeping in hotels, and traveling from city to city and state to state with just two bags over 12 months. They host their "meat-and-greet" events, but they also offer free Wienermobile rentals for birthdays, car shows, festivals, and more that give their Hotdoggers other crazy experiences.

"We were the getaway car in somebody's wedding not too long ago," said Dlott.

"We got to go put this on a racetrack in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They have this test drive area for Corvettes and we took the Wienermobile on it," he continued. "Last weekend we did the St. Patrick's Day parade in Chicago, so we got to see the river turned green — we called it the relish river, naturally."

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But if you get the chance to ketchup with the Hotdoggers, they'll tell you their favorite part of the job is people's responses.

"I've never seen so many jaws drop. There was this one when I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma , and I'm turning into this gas station ... we round this corner and there's this guy that's down in the dumps, looks really sad, his head was down and then he looks up and he literally lights up, like a candle," said Dlott.

During their first stop in metro Detroit in front of the Walmart Supercenter in Shelby Township on Friday, Dlott said one family was excitedly waiting in the parking lot for the Wienermobile before they even arrived.

"Sometimes you give that little boy or little girl a whistle and it just makes their day, and then they have a memory for the rest of their lives," he said. "One of my favorite parts of the job is getting to hear the stories, like, 'I remember when I saw the Wienermobile! I was 5 years old in California, it was 1969.' ... Hearing those stories (made me realize) that a 27-foot-long hot dog means so much to people."

The Wienermobile, Hammy Sammy and Sammer Sausage will be in Dearborn at the Henry Ford from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday and in Clinton Township at the Walmart Supercenter on Hall Road from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.

Check out WhereMyDogs@ for the Wienermobile's most up to date schedule.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oscar Mayer's Wienermobile is back in metro Detroit