The Lobstermobile
For more than twenty-seven years, a giant lobster has been driving the roads of Central Florida, turning heads and drawing cameras wherever it goes.
Before the Beetle
For many years our local marketing efforts included visiting hotels and tourist areas in small pickup trucks with 14-foot fiberglass lobsters mounted on the roof.
One Look Was All It Took
Then the Volkswagen Beetle returned to the market in 1998. One look is all it took. We bought one of the first ten Beetles sold in Orlando and partnered with Exoscope, a fabricator that works with the theme parks, to produce a lobster to match.
Mounted nose to tail, the finished lobster stretched more than 16 feet and weighed some 800 pounds. It has since become the most photographed lobster in the world and has been featured in multiple car magazines. Every time the Lob Star takes to the streets, people take pictures, wave, honk and drop their jaws.
1,425 Miles to Maine
In 2015 the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath reached out. They were building their first major exhibit on lobstering and the Maine coast, and they wanted a lobster.
So Jeff donated the original Lobstermobile and sent two staff members to tow it 1,425 miles up Interstate 95, with stops in Myrtle Beach, Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. It made the long trip back to the water it came from, and it has been part of the museum's exhibit ever since.
ME Icon
Our other Lobstermobile bears the plate ME Icon. ME is the postal abbreviation for Maine, where the lobster comes from.
Have you seen the Lobstermobile while exploring Orlando? Tag us in your pics. @bostonlobsterfeast
The car gets the attention, but the feast is what it is there to celebrate: more than 60 items, all you can eat, at two Orlando area locations.
The full forty-year story, from a garage full of lobster tanks to two restaurants, is here.