In a second-hand book shop in Beverley over Christmas I came across (though didn’t buy) Afghan Trucks, a book of photos by Jean-Charles Blanc published in 1976.

It has very few words, just an introduction, but contains lots of photos of brightly-painted lorries in Afghanistan; there are some examples at Tabsir.net.

The pictures painted on the lorries have themes including aerial battles; rockets and interstellar spacecraft; armadas of galleons and fleets of steamers; duels fought to the death between savage beasts, and there were even some lorries decorated with pictures of trains.

One picture was of a train from the USA’s Santa Fe railway, and one was of an exotic-looking streamlined passenger train which I couldn’t identify – perhaps Russian?