the nissan patrols never took off because the FJ-40 was better. I love the body and interior size and even the nissan 4.0 looked better, but the fact remains that the gear ratios were not very low in lo-range and the axles were weak and the icing on the crap-cake was that they only had 3 spd transmissions.

as far as the pre 70's importation rule, it was emission based rules. Nissan knew the patrol had lousy sales in N.A. so they didn't invest in emissions for that model. The 720 series trucks sold like hotcakes though.