I’ll never forget the time I was walking down the street in Fukuoka and saw a  bicycle that looked that it has just rolled in from Mars.  It had  crazy flashing lights — it looked like a  kaliedascope on wheels.

Little did I know what I’d seen was an extension of  dekotora,  an entire culture spawned  by a 1970s film series called Torakku Yaro (“Trucker”).      

From Wikipedia:

Dekotora or Decotora (デコトラ, dekotora), an abbreviation for “Decoration Truck”, is a loudly decorated truck found often in Japan. Dekotora commonly have neon or ultraviolet lights, extravagant paints, and shiny stainless or golden exterior parts. These decorations can be found on both the cab and the trailer, and not only on the exterior but also in the interior. Dekotora may be created by workers out of their work trucks for fun, or they may be designed by hobbyists for special events. They are sometimes also referred to as Art Trucks (アートトラック), ātotorakku).

Here’s one of the intros to the series.  I’ve been playing this video off and on during the week just to hear the song, “Ichiban-boshi Blues” (sung by Bunta Sugawara and Kinya Aikawa).

This next clip  is a scene from the series. As best as I can tell, the entire premise is based on the life of some Japanese  truckers that drive around and cause trouble  in their crazy-ass trucks. At night they  turn the lights on and really f*ck sh*t up. Sounds great. As far as I can tell these haven’t been rereleased with English subtitles.

Warning: This clip features the bare breasts of a female police officer after her  top gets caught and ripped off by heavily decorated truck. Whether that sounds work safe or not is up to you.

I found some links to a bunch of dekotora truck sites via Pink Tentacle. I’m not even interested in cars or any sort of vehicle, but I can’t help but be blown away by these things.