There was a Silvia Highway Patrol Car ? There certainly
was ! I'm not sure of the number of Silvias that were used for this purpose
but they were definately in being used by the Japanese police in the mid-1960s.
The photos I have seen show the cars with two tone paintwork (the photos
were in black and white, but they appeared to be white on top and possibly
dark blue on the bottom). They appear to be totally stock standard except
for flashing lights on the front bumper and the roof, a roof mounted antenna,
rather large over riders and a unique emblem mounted high on the guards
saying "Silvia Patrol". And why not have a Silvia for a patrol car ? Think
back to 1965 when the Silvia was first released, just like today, there
were very few imported cars on the road in Japan. What could come close
to the Silvia ? The Silvia was the fastest thing on the road. The next
fastest Japanese cars back then were the Datsun Fairlady 1500 and the Prince
Skyline Sport 1900, other than them nothing could even come close.
A side view of one of the Silvias used by the Highway
Patrol in Japan. The cars were two-tone white and dark blue. These cars
had specially made badges that say "Silvia Patrol" instead of the regular
"Nissan Silvia" badges, the badges are also mounted higher up on the front
guards than usual.
Two of Japan's finest stand proudly beside their
Silvia Patrol. From this angle you can see the rather unusual over riders
these cars have.
The dashboard of the Silvia Patrol with it's unusual
extra instrument binnacle in the centre of the dash. To the left of that
you can see the large box section on the underside of the dash that would
have housed the police band radio. Most of the luxury fittings have been
removed.
A 1:40 scale die-cast model of the Silvia Highway
Patrol car by Diapet.
.
The following is a transcript of an article I wrote
on the Silvia Highway Patrol Car that was recently printed in "Sports Torque". It is early 1965, you are in charge
of the highway patrol in Japan, and you have a problem. It is a problem
that has never really existed before in Japan. Up until recently motorists
have been a very law abiding group of people, speeding and other such driving
offences were almost unknown. To be honest, speeding has been close to
impossible in the cars that have been built in Japan up until recently.
The few people that could actually afford to own a car have been driving
cars such as the Datsun 210, the Suzuki Suzulight and the Mazda R-360,
the fastest of these cars has a top speed of only 120kph, but the majority
have serious trouble just getting to 90kph. But by the early 1960s things
were changing, Japan has slowly recovered from the second world war and
in the process has embraced capitalism. Japan's economy is growing at an
amazing rate and the Japanese people are suddenly starting to enjoy a new
found affluence, and a great deal of their income is now being spent on
new cars. The Japanese car makers were quick to respond and the first wave
of Japanese performance cars has begun to emerge. Nissan and Prince led
the way with the Datsun Fairlady and the Prince Skyline Sport, these were
followed by the Honda S500 and S600 and the Toyota Sport 800. By early
1965 these cars are becoming a more common sight on the streets of Tokyo
and Yokahama, and their owners are not interested in slowly pottering around
town. These cars are being driven fast and the Datsun Bluebirds the police
have been using have little chance of keeping up with them. You need a
new highway patrol car to deal with this problem, what car do you choose
? The car you want is the new Nissan Silvia. Why select the Nissan Silvia as a highway patrol car ? Why
select one of the most expensive cars ever built in Japan, a car that costs
more than three times as much as the Datsun Bluebirds previously used ?
There are several reasons, but the single most important reason is speed.
At the time of it's introduction in early 1965 the Silvia was the fastest
Japanese production car ever built. It had the highest top speed and it
could cover the standing quarter mile two seconds faster than the Datsun
Fairlady and the Skyline Sport, and was significantly quicker than the
fastest cars Honda and Toyota were producing. It's handling was as good
as, and in most cases better than, anything else on the road. It was also
the only Japanese car at the time that had disc brakes, so it stopped pretty
well too. Several modifications were carried out of the Silvia to turn
it into a highway patrol car. Externally, the car has the obligatory big
flashing light on the roof and also some extra lights mounted on top of
the front bumper bar. The radio antenna has been deleted and a police radio
antenna has been mounted on the roof. The car is also fitted with large
over-riders on the front and rear bumper bars, something the standard Silvias
never had. The other notable thing about the outside of the car, apart
from the rather unfortunate two tone paint work, is the emblem on the side
of the car. On the standard Silvia the emblem is mounted near the bottom
of the front guard, about 7-8 inches from the bottom, on the highway patrol
car the emblem is mounted very high, just under the crease at the top of
the guard. But the most interesting thing is that it is a different emblem,
instead of the standard "Nissan Silvia" emblem it has an emblem made especially
for the highway patrol car that says "Silvia Patrol". What is believed to be one of these specially built Silvia
highway patrol cars has just shown up in the United States. The photo of
the dash board shown here is of that car. Anyone who is familiar with the
inside of a Silvia will notice that some major surgery has been carried
out in here. Looking from left to right the first thing you notice is that
the glove box is completely missing. There is normally a lift up section
on the top of the dash to access the glove box, instead the top of the
dash is one complete flat panel. On the under side of the dash a large
box section has been added, which in this photo has a large rectangular
hole cut in it. This is presumably the location of the police band radio.
The middle of the dash is where things start to look really strange. The
speaker cover has been deleted from the top of the dash and the heater
controls have been moved to the right to make way for a very odd, round
instrument binnacle in the centre of the dash. The original instrument
binnacle has been slightly modified and now has six guages instead of five.
This gives a total of eight guages. The centre console is upholstered in
black instead of the original cream colour. The radio has been deleted
as well as several switches and there are now only three knobs in the centre
console. The Silvia highway patrol cars effectively enforced the law
on the streets of Japan's major cities for the next few years until the
second wave of Japanese performance cars hit the streets. Over the next
few years the Fairlady 2000, Prince Skyline GTB and Toyota 2000GT came
out and could comfortably outperform the Silvia. Also the new hot sedans
such as the Datsun Bluebird SSS and the Isuzu Bellett GT were starting
to match it's performance, so eventually the Silvia was replaced with a
newer, faster car. The police in Japan have continued to use Japan's more exotic
performance cars as highway patrol cars, today their fleet includes cars
such as the Honda NS-X and the Nissan Skyline GT-R. Our police officers
must be very jealous of their oriental colegues, especially considering
the highly uninteresting Australian family sedans they have had to endure
over the years.
