Approximately 569 million Slim Jim snacks are manufactured every year. In contrast, there is one and only “Fast Meat,” a Nissan Z that the company had customized as a promotional tool for the brand. Now, the company claims the car has been stolen, and it’s reaching out to the community for help.
It’s a curious story, and one that has all the hallmarks of a marketing stunt at first glance. There’s a ridiculous hashtag (#FindFastMeat), and the company’s wise-cracking social media accounts are calling for help from the “Long Boi Gang.”
And yet, it’s apparently a very real case of theft. The company put out a press release on Tuesday stating that the car, which really is nicknamed “Fast Meat,” was last seen in California. The vehicle had been travelling around as part of a partnership with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and was on its way to LA for a video shoot. “We knew we had something special with our custom car, but had no idea it would be in such demand that someone would steal it,” said Ashley Spade, the VP & General Manager of Snacks at Conagra Brands, which owns the Slim Jims brand.
The brand’s press release implores anyone that spots the vehicle to report it to the Los Angeles Police Department or contact LA Crime Stoppers. The Autopian has reached out to the LAPD’s media contact for comment on the matter.
Despite the irreverent tone of the brand’s social media posts, it does insist that the situation is real. A TikTok video, among other posts, included a redacted fragment of a police report dated to December 13.
@
It’s perhaps a little odd that the company waited almost a week after the theft to post a press release. That’s not the smartest move if you’re super eager to get your car back. It may be that it simply took some time for someone to realize that it could be an opportunity to get some marketing attention out of what is fundamentally a minor frustration to a billion-dollar brand. Indeed, we’re helping by posting about it, aren’t we?
The car, for what’s it worth, is fairly recognizable. It has massive Slim Jim branding on the hood and doors, with the body emblazoned with flames. It also got a custom interior trimmed in yellow leather, and a hot red LED underglow to boot. The glove box also features a Slim Jim dispenser, too. The numbers 69 and 420 appear all over the car because haha, funny numbers, right? And there’s a shout out to the “Long Boi Gang” with an emblem featuring the name Slim Jim gives to the collective fans of its products. According to the company’s press release, the custom job was done by “one of Hollywood’s most iconic custom auto shops,” but they completely fail to mention which that is.
It’s also amusing that, as much as the company appears to want its car back, the best it could do for a press release was deliver this poor-quality, low-resolution image with the car distant in the frame.
The car is seen in a better light in recent appearances in WWE commercials. In a spot that hit YouTube just three weeks ago, it delivers LA Knight to a “69th Anniversary Party” where he seems to sonically assault an old lady by… snapping into a Slim Jim. As an Australian, I’ve never had one, but I can confirm that our domestic meat snacks do not offer the same functionality.
As a cynical, battle-weary journalist who has spent too long on the blogglefield, something smells off about this whole thing, like a half-eaten Slim Jim left down the back seat of a festy Buick Reatta. The fact the company is actively advising people to call law enforcement does support the idea that it was a real theft, and the company is just trying to capitalize on the matter. And who knows, maybe in 20 years, a fresh upstart Autopian writer will be posting about how “the long-lost Fast Meat car has finally been found.”
Fundamentally, if it is a fake story, it’s poorly executed and an incredibly thoughtless thing to do. If it’s real, well, you know. Here’s hoping the meat people get their car back and can keep making wrestling ads with it. If you do find the car (note to Editor: I’m not calling it Fast Meat again) I guess let the police know (and let us know, too).
“…down the back seat of a festy Buick Reatta.”
Behind one of the front (and only) seats, or perhaps stinking up one of the little carpeted cargo compartments? https://i.imgur.com/ZClU7Cn.jpg
What was the license plate?
FSTMEAT?
I’ll see myself out.
Anyone who owns a Fiesta ST should definitely say they are going to do some FiSTing before a drive.
They are commonly referred to as FiSTs
Seeing this makes me realize I’ve seen maybe 1 of the refreshed Nissan Z in the wild. I live in an area where people certainly have cash to buy one if they want to. I remember seeing dealers holding them hostage for markup. Meanwhile the last-gen examples I see get more and more Altima clapped out every time I see one.
LOL – There is still one on my area with $15k markup. $82k for a Z Nismo. Looks like another dealer had a Nismo marked up $8k but has since dropped it back down to MSRP.
I live in a car-centric place. You can just about see anything here.
and i’ve never seen one of the new Z. It’s weird.
I live in a land of off-road vehicles, so most people have Jeeps, big trucks, and all manner of Toyotas (I’m in that last group), but there is a rebellious contingent that loves sports cars. I routinely see Corvettes, Porsches, GT-86s, Mustangs, Camaros, and the odd R8 and Supra. Very seldom do I ever see a Z, and if I do, it is always a very beaten 350Z with an idiotically loud exhaust and a bad case of blowby or a 370Z scraping at every bump due to the stanceboi suspension. I can’t recall having seen a new Z except in photos online.
I’ve only seen two. The first one was before release, parked downtown San Jose on the curb in front of the SAP pavilion (it’s ok there was nowhere else around) so the car journalist who had its keys could take some nicer pictures of it.
He let me sit inside, which certified that it does have a bit more headspace than the 370Z (as a tall person I just can’t get into one of those).
As a Z fanboy from my youth, I am constantly on the lookout for them. They don’t exist around my midwest city (although to be fair, very few sports cars do). In fact, my 350 is one of only four I’ve seen in the past two years. Two other 350s, one other 370.
It’s sort of cool because it makes my humble weekend toy more rare (and by extension get more “I love you car” when I pick up pizza). But also sad because I can’t imagine another Z getting made if this one has flopped so horribly. When I got my Z used around 2011, 350s/G35s/370s/G37s were as common as Mustangs. The economy, consumer lust for crossovers, and Nissan’s apathy are killing a storied nameplate.
It just seemed like it had a lot of hype, and as I pointed out in my post, there are dealers that still seem to think it is worth a premium over MSRP.
Are the dealers idiots? Or are people scooping them up and they disappear somewhere?
Did a whole army of idiots think these were like investment grade cars to buy and hold in a hyperbaric bubble?
I’ve only seen one in the flesh. I kind of feel a bit sad about it. Most folks say it’s a good evolution of the Z. I personally like the looks, but it’s beyond me in terms of a new purchase.
From what I’ve read and combined with my own first-hand experience of the 350/370 platforms, the new Z sounds from reviews like it is basically the equivalent of a factory-modified 370 with a slightly better interior (and MUCH improved exterior). So close does it sound to me that I find it hard to lust after it.
My little old 350 is fully bolted on, tuned, suspension, brakes, lighter and wider wheels/tires, etc… and sure, the new Z has 140 more hp and 100 more ftlb of torque, but 0-60 time is still only seven tenths of a second better, and I bet mine handles fairly similarly too, especially being 200+ lbs lighter.
I was really hoping the new Z would be more than that. The body is gorgeous. But there’s no way I could justify spending new car money what is really a factory-modified old car.
I don’t “get” brands on social media.
I almost never switch of my adblocker browser extension, I pay extra for the ad-free tiers of streaming services, and even when I watch live TV I often watch it on a slight delay so I can skip the commercials… but they want me to go out of my way to follow brands so that they can put adds in my social media feeds? All just because they sometimes post funny memes?
No, thank you. Brands are not your friends.
I’m the same, but I’m guessing most people don’t.
A lot of people are “enthusiasts” of these brands too, as odd as it sounds, which is what they want.
Is my wife buying and wearing a Whataburger shirt really any different from me buying and wearing an Autopian shirt? We both paid to be walking advertisements.
I think it’s less about getting people to actively follow the brand and more that they can advertise cheaply and make it look more “organic.” You pay to ensure that your meme hits a bunch of feeds, it gets retweeted a bunch of times, and you have a bunch of people engaging with your marketing for cheap.
Sure, you get some folks who follow for the latest brand news or whatever, but you’ve already sold those folks on your product and just hope they’re excited enough to spread the news. And you probably use some giveaways and partnerships to encourage them to spread things to their followers. People follow for the giveaway, then forget to unfollow. Boom, cheap advertising.
“As an Australian, I’ve never had one”
You’re not missing anything.
The best part about a slim jim is pretending you’re the Macho Man for a few seconds.
The worst part is accidentally reading the ingredients. Mechanically separated chicken was not a term meant for the human mind to unravel.
Mechanically separated chicken I don’t take issue with except for how chicken or fowl of any kind does not belong in a spicy sausage ever.
Mechanically separated chicken is BS. I require all my chickens to mechanically single or divorced. Fewer complications that way.
Mechanically “It’s complicated” chicken is even worse.
Not the part where you rip your fingernails from their beds trying to rip open the packaging because you don’t have a knife handy? That is legitimately the reason why I stopped buying them.
You forgot about acid reflux, although, not sure you’d miss that.
We did a lot of work at a factory that produces meat-type snacks for various brands. It’s been about 4 years now, and I just started consuming certain premium jerky products again. Not because of cleanliness issues, but because of the smell. It literally put me off my feed.
-so you’re definitely not missing anything
Was the thief able to open the door using a… slim jim?
I agree that this is most likely a stunt. “Poorly executed and incredibly thoughtless” is totally on-brand for Slim Jim.
I’m still not entirely convinced the police report is real. This smells a lot like such recent ad campaigns as “Snoop Dogg is giving up smoke” (because he’s endorsing a smokeless fire pit), designed to garner a bunch of uncritical attention before revealing the ruse. That one had people writing very serious pieces about Snoop seeing the “dangers of marijuana” before the reveal.
That said, if it is truly stolen, I hope the thief is just openly driving it with the recognizable wrap still on. Because that would be kind of hilarious.
Someone stole Slim Jim’s Fast Meat Car? What a jerky thing to do.
I’m sure the Slim Jim wrap was removed and discarded in a Walmart parking lot before the thief/ves drifted it around in a intersection at a takeover where at least one “spectator” had his ACL snapped into by the quarter panel of the Z as green lasers were shined into his eyes.
Does anyone know the whereabouts of one, Hollywood Hulk Hogan these last few days? This is absolute Macho madness!
“What’chu going to do brother! When our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ returns to earth to rapture on you!” – Hulk Hogan 12/20/23
That’s a little “convenient.”
Maybe it was….Mr. America!
https://youtu.be/MQtdJk6wPVI?si=TOdztg6cPt6EliY_
In the UK we have a similar looking meat snack called a peperami. It has the tag line “it’s a bit of an animal”.
Accurate tag line: “It’s many smashed together bits of perhaps several different animals.”
It makes me think of Weenie Tots, Al Bundy’s favorite snack in Married With Children. The full ingredients are a closely guarded secret. Al did get to tour the factory and watched a guy pushing a wheelbarrow labeled “Beaks & Claws”. This did nothing to temper Al’s love of those abominations.
obligatory simpsons reference image
I said on the other site that I would believe it if they released the police report. Well it looks like the car actually did get stolen, as I doubt that filing a false police report would have gotten the green light. That doesn’t mean the brand hasn’t realized that playing this up like it was a media stunt is more valuable to them than the car, which by now isn’t a car so much as a pile of car parts rapidly being sold off.
I’m not so sure some thieves would steal this to part it out. I assume there are other, less distinctive Nissan Zs they could have stolen without incurring a large media response.
Eh. You get the police to play along after a large donation is made to their “retirement” fund.
I’m no fan of the modern Z cars, but that thing deserves better.
getting stolen might be the best thing that happened to it 🙂