Last week, CNN posted a slideshow feature about the modern tradition of decorating trucks in Pakistan. Apparently, a whole specialized industry has arisen to fulfill the need for glorious, eye-popping truck decoration. After a bit of searching, I found the above image from Flickr user imranthetrekker.
It takes about a week (and $600) for a master craftsman to pimp your ride using a combination of hand painting and decorative adhesive tapes. As you can see from the image above, the inside of the truck is painted as intensively as the outside.
Does ANYBODY know where I can buy some of these tapes? Can you imagine what my Ford Focus hatchback would look like covered in these?
Individual attention is paid to each part of the vehicle. Patterns accentuate the form of the vehicle, creating miniature panels and cameos for painted decoration. Everything comes together in a glorious celebration of mobile horror vacuii.
Photographer Peter Grant has thoroughly documented the phenomenon of Pakistan's painted trucks for a website that he has put together. Check out the above photo, where layers of carefully cut wood and plastic are being layered together in a psychedelic/traditional pattern. According to him, the tradition dates back to the days of the Raj, where craftsmen would intensely paint the carriages belonging to the local gentry. In the 1920's a bus company hired a skilled painter to decorate one of their buses, giving birth to the tradition that you see in these photos.
If you need some inspiration for your own paint job, you can purchase photographic prints directly from Peter Grant, or you could just take your custom van directly to Pakistan, where you can commission the real thing. How much would my wife love to come home to a Pakistani folk depiction of a lady Stormtrooper riding on a unicorn?
Thanks Nora!
