Stories of 510 in Malaysia

[jee1]

Im not really certain how true is this, but this was the conversation that took place between me and a retired cop in a workshop last week....

cop: Hey, is that your car? Is it a SSS? Which year ?
me: Yea, its a SSS, 69 model
cop: How did you get this car? Where did you manage to find it? I dont remember seeing one in Malaysia since mid-70's. After all these years, only now im seeing one
me: Took me quite some to find, alot of effort spent in finding
cop: Back then, during 1965, i joined the police force. During the late 60's, just like the rest of the Japanese cars, this model came to Malaysia. After being sold for 2 years, this model was not allowed into Malaysia anymore. It was banned literally
me: Errmm...why?
cop: People over here start mis-using this car. This car became the get-away car. Drug dealers and robbers used this model for their activities since it can outrun the police vehicles back then. Besides being fast, it was an affordable car. So, there wasnt any successful sales here back then. That's the reason this model is quite impossible to be seen on the road nowadays.

[okayfine]

Nice story! Who knows if it is true. There don't seem to be any resources that could determine how many cars were actually sold in Malaysia. But there had to be a fair number, and they had to still be a fair few recently because about 10 years ago I was dealing with a guy in Kuala Lumpur who was selling weatherstripping kits for the 510. I'd batch up group orders and get one big shipment, and the stuff wasn't bad quality, certainly for the price.

Could be that whatever factory he was dealing with just dusted off some old rubber molds, but I imagine that's unlikely they'd be kept for so long, or made in the first place if the 510's production/availability was limited to only two years.

[two_68_510s]

Sounds like how NASCAR got started here, outrunning the sheriff!!