Not entirely sure if this counts as cosplay, but it is of cars ‘dressing up’ to express other characters. Perhaps it is more of a car alternative fashion, but whatever.
This is phenomenon is called “itasha” (痛車), literally translates to “painmobile”. I don’t really understand the origin of the term, but I suppose dressing up cars in such a way is painful for the wallet.
Wikipedia defines itasha as such:
Itasha (痛車), literally “painmobile”, is a Japanese term for an otaku fad of individuals decorating the bodies of their cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games (especially bishōjo game or eroge).
Additionally,
Itai here means “painful”, which can be interpreted as “painfully embarrassing” or “painful for the wallet” due to the high costs involved. The name is also a pun for Italian cars (イタリア車 Itaria-sha), truncated in Japanese slang as Itasha (イタ車).
So here is your daily dose of random trivia. Posting this because I may be taking a written test for a driver’s license tomorrow.