Toyota Crown History in Malaysia

The Crown was first assembled here in the early 1980s with a 2.8-litre petrol engine. Interestingly, it had a chassis frame construction like a pick-up. The price then was in the low RM30,000s. Two generations were assembled locally and in the mid-1980s, there was also a 2.2-litre diesel version which cost RM35,000 and the 2.8 petrol Super Saloon was RM47,000. I remember testing both and they had conveniences like power windows and central locking and the door locks also had auto-locks which were triggered by a metal ball bearing moving backwards. Assembly stopped after the mid-1980s as the yen shot up and large Japanese models were no longer cheap and people preferred to buy European models instead. Also, after Proton came out, the market went through 'restructuring' and companies dropped many models which would not sell in sufficiently large numbers. Later on, in the 1990s, UMWT imported Crowns mostly for its top management and they cost quite a lot but were never in the showrooms for public sale. Toyota never really pushed the Crown hard even though it was the flagship before Lexus came out. The Japanese recognised that while it was a big Japanese limousine and respected in their own market, outside Japan it was considered poorly against European limousines and in Australia, there was a time when some magazines even made fun of its name saying it was a 'Toyota Clown' and that its acceleration was so poor that you could even use the clock on the dashboard to time it! The Toyota Crown in Malaysia had a competitor in the Datsun 280C which Tan Chong also assembled in the early 1980s. This was also a large limousine and in the same price range and also had a diesel version (220C). I remember one of the 'exciting' features in the 280C was its overhead audio console which was actually an accessory supplied by National or one of those companies. It was attached to the ceiling and had a cassette player at one end and the switches were on the panel so you reached up to operate it... just like an aeroplane! Tan Chong also dropped the 280C by the second half of the 1980s. Its domestic name was Cedric, which was certainly not going to be good for markets outside Japan (just as Fairlady was not used for export versions of the 240Z). You may wonder where all those Crowns went. Well, in the late 1990s, a used car dealer in PJ Section 8 discovered that because of the chassis-frame construction of the Crown, it was a very tough car and East Malaysians liked it. So he began to buy up as many used ones as he could find in Peninsula Malaysia and did them up and then shipped them to East Malaysia and sold them for a nice profit. His buying efforts puzzled many people who wondered why someone was buying so many Crowns but before values could go up, almost all had been bought up by the guy. As for your observation about the taxis in Singapore, the Crown they have used for decades is actually a special taxi model made by Toyota which I remember was called the Crown Crew Cab. Its design didn't change for a long time and its main selling point was reliability and low operating costs. Because of its reputation, it was the choice of taxi companies down there and I think they still like it but maybe because of competition, there are attractive offers from other companies these days. I know that there are now Skoda and Sonata taxis there but a car company guy I spoke to (and he is not associated with Toyota at all) remarked that those who bought other models will probably go back to the Toyota later on because it's so well proven and very economical to run.