#FlashbackFriday: Remember That Time A Guy In Malaysia Tried To Steal The Same Porsche Twice In One Day

Not too long ago, my colleague Jim answered the question if a second-hand Porsche 986 was a smart buy or money pit. You can read that piece here. 

This got me thinking and remembering about the greatest heist involving a Porsche to have taken place on Malaysian shores. If you thought Bolehland only turns up funny videos of Perodua Myvis every once in a while – think again, because this story has all the action-packed appeal of Gone in 60 Seconds with just about enough tactical planning and finesse as Bart Simpson mowing his front lawn.

Moreover, the year was 2007, so this predates the popularity of Facebook (2004 in case you are wondering) breaking news updates and dashcams and harks back to the time of Friendster and WinAmp – yes, yours truly remembers. Therefore, you might not even have heard about it. However, rest assured this story has made its way across the world.

Round 1

The story goes, one morning in July of 2007, a neatly dresses gentleman walks into a luxury car dealership in Penang, with a checkbook in hand requesting to take a look at some of their high-end models. He looked like he was going to drop some hard cash there and then.

He finally zeroes in on one Porsche (997) 911 Targa 4 which carried a retail price tag of around RM1 million at the time.

After checking it out and sitting in it for a while, he asks the sales executive for the keys so he could start up the car and hear it purr… the salesman obliges. After starting the car and revving it a few times, he casually starts driving the car, smashes the windows of the dealership and proceeds to drive away with his stolen dream car.

However, his high-performance dreams come to an abrupt end when just 2km later, the Porsche runs out of fuel and is abandoned by its brainiac carjacker. The car is then reclaimed by the police, and towed to a police impound and stored there while the paperwork is resolved.

Image credit: Autoblog

However, that is not the end…

Later that night, at approximately 10.45 pm, our very own Memphis Raines returns to the police impound; only now, he comes prepared, with a canister full of petrol.

He actually cuts the perimeter fence of the police impound, sneaks his way in – and because he kept the keys after abandoning the car earlier in the day – he proceeds to refuel the Porsche and drive off with it again.

According to reports at the time, the carjacker broke through a police sentry – causing major alarm amongst the police – who then quickly set up roadblocks across the city in an attempt to apprehend the suspect.

Realising he has no way out, he then abandons the Porsche 911 yet again near Maktab Perguruan Tuanku Bainun in Mengkuang. He then takes off on foot and the car is then recovered by the police, for the second time.

And this is the best part, though the police said that investigations would ensue, they never caught their man, who we surmise still roams free to this day. Take that Nicholas Cage.