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From Kenya to Colombia, we explore the world’s most jaw-dropping, eye-popping automotive art you’ll have to see to believe.
Rolling Canvases
Wherever you go in the world, you’ll find people expressing themselves through their vehicles. While we here in the US are used to lifted suspensions, lowriders, and Subies featuring ground effects and body kits with questionable aerodynamics, there are lots of automotive subcultures around the world that take things much further. Today, we’re exploring the globe, from Kenya to Colombia, for the most vibrant, eye-popping customizations, where art and business intersect to produce the wildest looking vehicles in the world.
Every Commute a Party: Kenyan Matatus
If you ever travel to Kenya, in East Africa’s Rift Valley region, you’re likely to take a Matatu to get around, especially in the sprawling cites of Nairobi and Mombasa. Matatus are small, privately owned buses that serve as the primary mode of public transportation in Kenya. To attract riders, owners of Matatus heavily customize these buses with flashy paint jobs, lights, and thumping sound systems. The Matatu name reportedly comes from the Swahili word for three, a reference to the fare price back in the 1970s. According to one survey, up to 70 percent of Nairobi’s 4.5 million residents take a Matatu on a daily basis.
Matatus might be daily transportation, but they’re also rolling discotheques. Catering to Kenya’s youth, Matatus’ paint schemes and themes often include pop culture references, rap stars, cartoon characters, superheroes, famous athletes, and more. Competition for riders is fierce, with each Matatu owner trying to out do the next. Inside a Matatu, riders are treated to wall-to-wall LED screens (typically showing music videos or movies), lights, yet more custom paint work, and stereo systems blasting dance music, often from local Kenyan artists. Matatus are typically built from a bare chassis and powertrain, so customization is only limited by the owner’s imagination.
Florid Folks Art: Pakistani Jingle Trucks
Among the world’s most lurid vehicles are the “Jingle” trucks of Pakistan and Afghanistan. These trucks and buses feature dazzling, intricate paint jobs. The trucks are often topped with a “taj” or crown, a carved wooden prow and a wooden bumper. Decorations often include plastic flowers, sashes, ornately carved wood paneling in addition to detailed paint work, murals and frescos of nature scenes, wildlife, flowers, even political figures.
The tradition of painted trucks in Pakistan dates back to the 1920s, and has steadily grown over the decades. The term “jingle truck” supposedly comes from American soldiers in Afghanistan coining the term thanks to the trucks’ jingling chains used as decorations, though the term may predate the war there.
Owners take great pride in their trucks’ decorations, and competition is fierce for the best and most impressive designs. The flashy looks aren’t just for fun either. The better the decoration, the more business a driver can attract. There are whole industries devoted to truck decoration employing mechanics, metal workers and welders, electricians, carpenters, as well as professional painters.
Gundam Style: Japanese Dekotora Trucks
Japan is known as a hotbed of automotive subcultures from tuners to bosozoku, so it’s not surprising they have their own genre of attention-grabbing trucks. The Dekotora trucks (or decorated truck) began as a small subculture of truck drivers in the northeast part of Japan decorating trucks used to transport fish. This was popularized in the rest of Japan following the release of a series of “Truck Yaro” or truck guys movies, kind of Smoky and the Bandit-style Japanese B-movies.
Dekotora trucks are typified by their heavy use of lights, chrome, and their boxy styles reminiscent of giant Gundam mechs from Japanese anime. Like the bosozoku style, dekotora trucks are intentionally over-the-top. The opposite of staid and restrained aesthetics of classical Japanese art.
Colombian Mountain Climbers: Chivas Buses
Jump over the rural mountains of Colombia and you’ll find yet another place where daily transportation comes with a splash of technicolor. The tradition of chivas buses of Colombia began back in the early 20th century. Chivas come brightly painted with custom designs and almost always with a roof rack for carrying passengers’ luggage. Today, chivas aren’t just a symbol of rural Colombia, they’re now promoted as transportation for tourists locally, while Colombian immigrants to the US have brought the chivas tradition with them, often promoting them as party buses.
Quick, Quick Taxi: Haitian Tap-Taps
Haiti has its own version of the colored bus, the tap-tap, serving as public transportation in the island nation. The name tap-tap translates to “quick, quick,” and with good reason as tap-taps are known for speedily weaving through dense traffic. Like Kenyan Matatus and Pakistani jingle trucks, Haitian tap-taps feature elaborate, hand-painted murals and designs expressing each owner’s individual style. Tap-taps aren’t just limited to larger vehicles either, many are pickup trucks with the beds converted with benches and canopies to serve as taxis, complete with flashy custom paint jobs.
