What d’ya mean, ‘not big enough’?

typed for your pleasure on 11 August 2005, at 1.58 am

Sdtrk: ‘Out out out’ by NON

File this under ‘Things That One Only Finds in Japan’. Behold: the art truck phenomena.

As you probably suspect, finding decent info about art trucks (or, as they’re also known, ‘deko-tora’, short for ‘decoration truck’) in English is uncommonly difficult, but from what I gather, they’re simply trucks used for shipping that just happen to be heavily customised by their owners. Like those who ‘rice out’ or ‘dub’ their Asian-made sports cars, they’re for showing off, but unlike sports cars, art trucks are still used for actual freight and utility purposes. It apparently started in the 70s, spawning a couple of films starring Bunta Sugawara of ‘The Yakuza papers‘ fame, and recently a game for the PS2 was made, called ‘Shin Dekotora densetsu’ (‘New Decoration truck Legend’).

Pretty decorative, pretty crazy.

Yep, art trucks.
So, like, do they hand-polish these feckers, or what?

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Posted in What the | 7 Comments »

7 have spoken to “What d’ya mean, ‘not big enough’?”

  1. es writes:
    August 11th, 2005 at 7.48 pm

    am i completely loon, or did you post the identical thin NOT on aug. 11?

  2. Davecat writes:
    August 11th, 2005 at 8.37 pm

    YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE SEEN THAT. NOW, MR BOND, I EXPECT YOU TO DIE.
    *activates ridiculously overpowered laser*

  3. SafeTinspector writes:
    August 11th, 2005 at 9.47 pm

    I love these trucks!

  4. Davecat writes:
    August 12th, 2005 at 2.47 am

    They are, indeed, fine conveyances. I’d have more respect for truckers in the States if they all drove dekotora.

  5. SafeTinspector writes:
    August 12th, 2005 at 6.30 am

    There would be a lot more dead pedestrians, I think.
    But they would have been slaughtered in style, so its all good!

  6. Jeff "Wolfgang" Lilly writes:
    August 17th, 2005 at 9.12 am

    This brings back memories… Having one of these suckers behind you on a narrow mountain highway… having them squeeze past you in nagoya, hoping they didn’t hit you,because most of them re driven by junior yakuza wanna-bes and they would undoubtedly blame you for scratching their truck…

  7. Davecat writes:
    August 17th, 2005 at 11.33 pm

    Love the trucks, hate their drivers. 🙂

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