Is Japan making fun of us by decorating their USDM-style cars with plastic bags and other garbage?

If you ever been to Japan you’ll notice that their cars, even the regular commuter ones, tend to be much cleaner than their US counterparts. Part of it is the strict roadworthiness inspections they have to undergo, but owners also take more pride in ownership. Ironically, lately some Japanese enthusiasts have purposefully spread a bunch of seemingly random garbage in their cars to make them look more American.

Recently the Japanese magazine Street VWs posted some images cars at a USDM-style car show in Japan. If you’re not familiar with USDM style, it’s when Japanese car enthusiasts try to make their cars more American looking. These aren’t Chevys and Fords, but Toyotas and Hondas that have their lights, bumpers, and emblems swapped for the US-market equivalents. It’s like how we put JDM parts on our Integras and 240SXes, but the reverse.

Anyway, some USDM fans have taken the game to a whole new level by adding a bunch of garbage to their cars. Typically you’d want your car to look as clean as possible at a car show, but not in this case. Instead, empty Big Gulp cups, old newspapers, and used shopping bags litter the cabin. Is this some kind of savage roast?

We reached out to our pal Satoshi Furuuchi, an editor at Street VWs, to see what this was all about. “We’re not making fun of American cars with trash,” he assured us. “We think it’s cool, and I admire it.” Look closely and you’ll see that this so-called trash is actually a carefully curated collection of common items from America that aren’t easily found in Japan.

“We don’t admire show cars. We admire everyday America,” Furuuchi explained. “These are cars you’d see in the wild. We want to pay homage to the ordinary cars parked at Walmart.”

If that’s the case, we have to admit that the attention to detail is astounding. The FasTrak transponder, the random parking garage ticket, the pine tree air freshener, it’s all on point. In one photo a faded dash mat, empty fast food tray, and English airbag warning tag converge in what appears to be a seventh-gen Honda Civic — a USDM car often found in hooptitude.

In another photo set a 12-pack of Brisk ice tea, Walmart house brand Ziploc bags, and a Jack-in-the-Box bag crowd the interior of a USDM Nissan Frontier never sold in Japan. Even the phone charger cords are either truly randomly strewn or carefully positioned to evoke the feeling of maximum indifference. The icing on the cake has to be a USDM pack of Salonpas pain relief pads made by Hisamitsu.

We asked Furuuchi how these owners obtained these items, which are not common in Japan. “Some people got them in the US and brought them back. But most buy them locally or receive them as gifts from friends.”

While these explanations are persuasive, we’re not entirely convinced they’re not clowning us. It’s true that most Americans treat their cars like motel rooms, a fact that Japanese visitors have surely noticed. Furuuchi told us one thing that made us feel a little better though: “Japanese people cherish their memories. We want to remember our stays in America.”