My Japanese connection goes back for almost quarter century. Even though I have not lived in the country for almost 20 years, I still try to stay connected with the culture and trends of what I call my second homeland. These days maintaining contacts is easy – unlike keeping a decent level of language ability (hard work). So let me change a bit from the tales of Soviet past, to do a quick write-up on some of the less known aspects of the Japanese car culture.
It never fails to amaze me how many current fashions and trends originated in Japan. The whole anime thing, robotech sci-fi, cosplay, hentai, Hello Kitty and video-gaming of which I cannot say much really being one of the few humans left who never played one. In car culture Japan’s contribution kept with the whole “weird” theme: VIP, stance, onikyan, drifting, Bosozoku and others.
Seeing how these moving expressions of Japanese weirdo imagination penetrate the borders and conquer our car culture(s), I fear the time when (if ever) we come to see dekotora (from the shortened Japlish expression “decorative trucks”).
It is funny though, that this fashion, epitomizing “looks over practicality” way of thinking, unlike VIP et al, has some very humble and down to earth origins to it.
In the mid to late 1960-s Japan was still largely very poor. But the country was working hard rebuilding itself and demand for cheap and economical transport was high. So like Europe a bit earlier, mom-n-pop shops, agro and fishing cooperatives and small businesses had to rely for their transportation needs on tri-wheeler trucklets called oto-sanrin (オート三輪).
None of them lived a life of pamper or actually much care. They worked hard to the point of being abused. The cheapest available steel, non-existent rust-proofing and generally poor quality meant that the body would start rusting even before the assembly was over.
This weakness was most acutely felt by fishermen. With the amount of water and salt the truck would be exposed to daily, even the recently acquired tri-wheeler would in no time turn into a rusty colander on wheels.
Money did not come in easy for the fisheries and they used whatever means they had to repair their trucks to keep them on the road, working.
They’d rivet patches, replace rusty panels and add height to bed sides , use dried poo and wood sticks, as they say in Russia, to fashion replacement paneling, bumpers and fenders. Everything would be used – parts off old buses, industrial machinery, or even scrapped American military equipment.
Not surprisingly, at some point modest embellishments started to appear. With better availability of rolled steel, other materials, machines and tools in general, engine turning of panels became wide-spread fashion. Textures proliferated endlessly along with the beautification zeal of truck owners to have all available surfaces covered with some sort of pattern, painted picture, or carry a light fixture of some sort.
Then 1975 sees the release of the first movie in the comedy series called Torakku Yarō (トラック野郎, literally Dumbhead Trucker) about adventures and endless dating mishaps of a trucker Momojiro Hoshi and his buddy, Kindzo Matsushita.
In the movie they drive two richly ornamented Mitsubishi Fuso trucks: Momojiro pilots the 1967 T951 3-tonner, and Kindzo — a lighter 1970 Т650.
The series had an instant success and hugely boosted the truck decoration fashion – some even attribute the whole dekotora movement to this movie’s popularity, which is not entirely correct, as we see. And like all fashions it gradually died.
The second appearance happened in the 1990s. The new style was now heavily based on the appearance of Gundam robots .
Edges, polished surfaces, spikes, protruding rear view mirrors and whatever you can imagine. Personally, I always thought that to come up with something like this your world view should be seriously… altered, but apparently the creators of these things managed without such undue… influence.
And each dekotora should of course carry hundreds of lights.
An interesting and noticeable feature of the modern decotora is the huge protruding bumper that the modders call Rasseru modoshi (ラッセル戻し) because of its similarity with a Russell Snowplow that were once pretty common in Japan.
Most surprising aspect of dekotora is that most of these contraptions managed to retain their practicality and continued to be used as intended – to carry cargo.
Here are a couple of videos giving you a good view of how the decotora looks on the road at daytime.
And parked during a dekotora gathering at night.
These days, the fashion sees demise for the second time, not in the least helped by crackdown from the Japanese police on all deviations from the standard.
The dekotora are again an increasingly rare sight.
If you want to browse through more weird dekotora pictures, follow the link in google.
I am surprised that these trucks can be operated on public streets. I would think that the extended fronts would make them hard to negotiate the congested traffic that we thought was common in Japan. On the other hand I would like to get my hands on one of those three wheeler trucks. Especially that one withe Harley front end!
I rented a car in Japan in 2014 – I didn’t find it to be any more congested than driving at home in Scotland – in fact the motorways,once you got away from the big cities, were less busy than they are here.
My thoughts and impressions exactly. Just get 50-60 miles away from Tokyo-Osaka conglomerate (anywhere, especially so on the Western coast) and it gets pretty empty.
Really interesting. Thanks Hombre.
I think Central Asians & Indians are also into highly-decorated trucks, though perhaps not so extreme as the Japanese here.
I don’t know how much snow Japan gets, but wedge-type plows were replaced in America by rotaries long ago, for their greater efficiency.
In certain mountain regions and on Hokkaido you can routinely get a meter (3.5 feet) overnight. A friend of mine, then living in Otaru, Hokkaido, once had to start his morning by exiting his house through the second floor window and digging down to locate their CR-V and clear the path to the main road.
What are they smoking? Fortunately none of those monstrosities could be complied here or I’m sure somebody would have imported some, we have a few overdecorated Hiace vans about with huge fins and wings but nothing quite on the scale of these docotora, they make the Pakistani Bedfords look positively restrained.
The thing with the Japanese is that they do not even have to alter their minds – weird stuff just happens to occur in their minds naturally.
Before proclaiming these truck “over-“, just watch the Japanese TV shows on Youtube (look for “weird Japanese TV shows”). Now that IS “over-” . 🙂
Manga is a huge engine of off-the-wall creativity, for successful ones become movies & TV series, esp. in Korea which is a multimedia powerhouse in Asia exporting to China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, & even back to Japan! And would you believe, Islamic countries like Iran? Kdramas seem popular among Hispanics here.
My favorite title: “All-Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku Nuku.” Japanese are silly about cats, hence cat-ear headgear, cosplay cats, porcelain cat statues, etc.
sometimes i wonder if the Japanese are an alien race. but i am mostly fascinated by their art and car culture. the Land of Zany.
I don’t get the style, I can certainly see the creativity and craftsmanship that goes in to it.
The “art” car scene in the USA looks like junk in comparison, which is the only thing that I can think of to compare it to.
I would love to see some of those trucks up close.
I do not get either, frankly, but what do I, a normal beyound boring middle-aged fella, know of “cool”? 🙂
US car art feeds heavily off Californian soil and NE urban black culture. Interestingly, these trends are pretty popular in Japan, so it looks like there is some sort of cross-pollination happening here.
Always fun to see different cultural trends .
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FWIW , drifting was well underway in America in the 194’s , prolly long before then .
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-Nate
Drifting, as a specific sport? It’s pretty universally acknowledged that it started in Japan in the 70s.
Sure, people have been doing powerslides since the very earliest days of motor racing, but that’s different, as it was the fastest way to get around a dirt road or track curve. Not generally so on paved tracks. And even then, the drift was not purposely accentuated way beyond the ideal drift angle for maximum speed, as is done in drifting.
Drifting is different; it’s specifically done for show, not maximum speed. Who was drifting (in the sense of the word as it’s commonly defined) back then?
I’m so clueless I didn’t realize it’s a ‘ sport ‘ .
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As you said , it was the fastest way ’round dirt tracks on live axles and bias ply tires…
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I learned it in the 1960’s just for foolishness .
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-Nate
Some early Dekotora in an old INXS clip. https://youtu.be/hYRTd3NVshc
Odd, I visited Japan 3 times in the 80s and don’t remember seeing many of these types of trucks.
As far as these trucks being “over the top”, the same charge could be leveled at some 18 wheelers here in the U.S. though rarely are they as extreme as the Japanese equivalent.
As for traffic being quite congested in Japan, I agree with others here….away from the bigger cities and especially in the northern island, traffic isn’t too bad.
You prolly hit the quiet spot – between the original craze of the 60-70’s and rerun of the 90’s.
I grew up in Japan as a kid, and have forgotten most of my Japanese. But do I remember those three wheeled trucketts. And the ones piled high with honey buckets!
When we heard Honda was going to start making cars did we laugh.
Last week my wife ordered herself a new Toyota Yaris hybrid. A hell of an ugly car. Took a couple of days to realize it looks like Motha from the old Japanese si fi horror flicks.
Do Greeks still use 3-wheeled trucks?
Don’t forget Dekotora biciycles, the Japanese equivalent of low rider bicycles.