I was pondering doing this one as a “Wordless Outtake,” as it kind of left me speechless at the time. But let’s not scrimp on commentary – that’s what this website should be about, in the end. Still, it’s difficult to convey the feeling of sheer otherworldliness that overcomes the CC hunter when faced with this fiberglass nightmare.
Initially, I really didn’t know what I was looking at, and it got worse from there. There was a kind of courtyard up ahead, and all I could see was a late-model Toyota Crown that seemed to have sprouted huge roof fins. That looked all kinds of wrong, so it warranted closer inspection, if nothing else to reassure myself that I hadn’t completely lost my marbles, or my sight, or both.
Turns out it wasn’t the Crown at all – it was a complete bad acid trip of a 25-year-old Toyota van, with slightly bigger (and much less ornate) trucks on either side.
The HiAce was grafted with a prominent nose that kind of looks like a giant bottle opener. But of course, the huge roof …er… decorations were out of this world. Kind of reminded me of the Winnebago spaceship in Spaceballs, but funnier because true.
Then I managed to see the rear end, and a whole nother level of space oddity was added, as well as a hefty dose of cutesy feline manga absurdity, because Japan. It’s just as well they have extremely stringent laws against recreational drug use in this country, because this is what they can come up with just using alcohol and seaweed. One shudders to think what traffic might end up looking like if they adopted the Dutch or Portuguese outlook on psychedelics. Hell no, Kitty.
Related posts:
CC Outtakes: Dekotora Trucks In Tokyo Traffic, by T87
Tales Of Japan – A Short Story Of Dekotora Subculture, by Hombre Calgarian
You say Dekotora Madness. Lexus says stop calling their latest design language “madness”
LOL….very nice. I agree
“The Lexuses are in early this year!”
Is that two giant exhaust pipes sticking out of the rear bumper?
The whole van is wow. I wonder what the inside looks like.
Perhaps they were going for extreme downforce. But why? On a mini-van?
Wow, I know the Japanese sometimes have ‘different’ tastes but this thing is wild .
-Nate
Who had the wet dream?
Sadly (or happily, depending on one’s perspective) rather a few of these escaped Japan over the past decade or two and and emigrated to New Zealand. Or perhaps the wings caught some air and this is where they landed. Usually Hiaces, but the odd Nissan Caravan or Homy has materialised here too. The more lairy wings and beaks usually have to be plucked to pass our roadworthiness rules, but they’re still a sight to behold, emblazoned on one’s retinas for all eternity, and promising to scare small children everywhere into eating their greens.
I plead guilty to driving a 1994 Hiace for most of the 1990s, and it was actually pretty decent. Although the factory front bumper regularly ran aground on driveways, so I have no idea how the Dekotorated ones negotiate anything larger than a cats eye reflector…