Maybe a year or so ago I recall seeing a vinyl bed cover for a kei truck that was really cool. It was "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" (神奈川沖浪裏), created by the artist (Katsushika) Hokusai (October 31, 1760 - May 10, 1849). Hokusai created in the ukiyo-e (浮世絵) style, popular from the 17th to 19th centuries. This was woodblock printing, which first arrived in Japan in the late 700s from China. The process is interesting, as the paper drawing was glued to a wood block, and then the block of wood carved, ink applied to the block, and then that block pressed onto the medium they wanted to decorate. I can't imagine creating a single block, let alone one for each color used! Hokusai created his famous "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" (富嶽三十六景) when he was in his 70s, approximately between the years of 1830 to 1832. He used the color "Prussian Blue" frequently, and it was introduced to Japan not long before he began his work on the Thirty-six Views. The first print in the series, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," is probably the best known of the entire series, has been said to be the "most reproduced artwork in history!" Ok, ok. Enough history. This is what part of the original artwork looked like, and I'm pretty sure that 90% of the readers will instantly recognize it, even if they don't know who created it:
My better half and I have always loved this piece of art, so we were really happy when we stumbled across it on a website that provides parts for Kei trucks. My only issue was that the cover was $150, and that was without shipping factored in. Enter 500YenShop.com, and the owner, Yuichi Murakami. We'll do a full article on the site, as I use it often, and have always had a good experience with them. (Yuichi is also a "gear-head"!). If you'd like, you can message him through WhatsApp. (It will pop up as "MKT Japan" and the profile picture is an E30 (late 80s/early 90s) BMW M3). I started looking for the Hokusai art on 500Yen, and I found it! (It was listed at ~$65 USD.) I wasn't entirely sure how much shipping would be, so I ended up looking around on eBay and found the same thing for $110. I figured that would probably be around the same amount as I'd end up paying for the item + shipping from Japan, so I just got it from eBay. When it finally arrived, whis is what we got:
I don't know where my calipers currently are, so I couldn't measure the thickness of the vinyl. It came with a bag of rubber "ties," but we decided not to use those as we wanted to be able to mount and remove it easily. This is what it looked like draped over the bed. I think it is listed as 185 cm x 212 cm (~6 ' x ~6' 11").
We decided to fasten it to the bed using bungee cords, those being a mix of the "loop" kind that have a plastic ball at one end, and the type that have a hook at each end. We're still trying out different combinations of cords to see what holds it best. Right now, I'm not too happy with how we affix the front eyelets to the "headache rack" on the back of the cab as it is commonly known.
As you can see, we got a decent "wrap" of things. It certainly looks cool, and we tested it out up to 45 mph on a "Costco Run" - worked great at keeping things safely in the bed on the way home. I won't keep it on the truck all the time, as people generally suck, and I'm sure someone would steal it. The other concern was, even though the vinyl is of a decent weight / thickness, there are some sharp corners it has to go over on the truck. What we might do is get some "pool noodles" (the long foam cylinders that people use to help them float in pools) - we'd take the pool noodle and slice it lengthwise on one side so that we could fit it as a "bumper" of sorts on top of the sides of the bed / tailgate. My thought is that would help keep the vinyl from rubbing back and forth and possibly getting cut on the sharp edges.
Lessons learned? Make sure you look around when you find something you like, especially something for Kei vehicles. The vehicles are super popular right now, and the jackasses out there are trying to be greedy and inflate their prices to ridiculous levels. Not cool.
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