Customised buses and trucks in Pakistan

Truck painting is a popular form of indigenous art in Pakistan and other South Asian countries, featuring floral patterns and poetic calligraphy. Such trucks are also known by the slang term jingle truck.

Many trucks and buses are highly customized and decorated by their owners. External truck decoration can cost thousands of dollars. The decoration often contains elements that remind the truck drivers of home, since they may be away from home for months at a time. Decoration may include structural changes, paintings, calligraphy, and ornamental decor like mirror work on the front and back of vehicles and wooden carvings on the truck doors. Depictions of various historical scenes and poetic verses are also common. Outfitting is often completed at a coach workshop. Chains and pendants often dangle off the front bumper.

Karachi is a major city center for truck art, though there are other hubs in Rawalpindi, Swat, Peshawar, Quetta and Lahore. Trucks from Balochistan and Peshawar are often heavily trimmed with wood, while trucks from Rawalpindi and Islamabad often feature plastic work. Camel bone ornamentation and predominance of red colours is commonly seen on trucks decorated in Sindh.

The term comes from United States military slang, coined by servicemen in Afghanistan, although it may date to the British colonial period. The term came to be because of the "jingle" sound that the trucks make due to the chains hanging from the bumpers of the vehicles.

Truck art has extended beyond the decoration and ornamentation of trucks into other forms and media.

Though cars are not traditionally decorated in South Asia, there are examples of cars embellished in a truck art style. In 2009, The Foxy Shahzadi, a 1974 VW Beetle decordated in a truck art style, traveled from Pakistan to France over a 25-day journey.

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Wikipedia