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NEWS
Hindustan Ambassador not dead yet
India's 50-year-old automotive icon is going nowhere... slowlyIndia’s Hindustan Ambassador sits high on every respectable list of cars that never die. And that’s not for want of trying. Witness the atrocities visited on India’s 50-year-old automotive icon for this famous ad for Peugeot’s 206 – voted Britain’s favourite TV ad in 2003.
The exterior lines of the ‘Amby’ sit closer to the pen of revered designer Sir Alec Issigonis, the father of the original Mini, than the 21st century MINI. For Issigonis was also behind the design of BMC’s 1950s Morris Oxford, from which it was knocked off with no effort at disguise back somewhere round the last days of the Raj.
Around in much the same form through more than five decades hence, this third world throwback has come to play a peculiar dual role in fast modernising India, slewing between mass fleeter and prestige chariot.
As the vehicle of choice for the nation’s taxi operators, it swarms by the million through India’s cities carrying the same black and yellow livery as New York’s similarly old-school Checker cabs. And while it’s also long been the public sector’s favoured fleet vehicle, it has simultaneously found a place in the collective heart of the nation’s ruling elite. It remains the limo of choice for many a dignitary – its maker points out in its Wikipedia entry that no less a person than Sonia Gandhi still enjoys its retro charms for the daily commute.
But how long does the Amby have left? According to a recent ABC report, sales have dropped dramatically in recent times, to about 300 a month, bringing it perilously close to the threshold of discontinuation. As the market opens up to overseas brands, particularly European and Japanese, and pockets fill with cash, the idea of spending $10K on a grandpa-special bears little appeal for worldly young buyers with heads full of brands like Apple, Peugeot and Mercedes-Benz.
Technologically, it falls way behind the Euros. It comes with a choice of four Isuzu-sourced four-cylinder engines. There’s a 1.8-litre petrol engine good for 54kW. It’s also available in CNG form, good for 40kW. There are also two oilers, the base 1.5 good for 27kW or the beefier, 38kW 2.0. And to round out the package, they’re as thirsty as they are asthmatic...
Yet, to paraphrase just about everyone who’s put pen to paper since Mark Twain, reports of the Ambassador’s pending death appear greatly exaggerated. Pundits have been predicting its demise for years. Yet the old codger still has its fans in high places. The ABC report on its imminent end featured an interview with a well-to-do Delhi lawyer and car collector, Daljeet Titus, who leaves his collection of flashy Euro roadware – old and new – in the garage, retaining his Amby for day to day work.
In the mid-2000s, Hindustan Motors forked out a small fortune to a noted local designer for a 21st century update. In 2008, after some 25,000 man-hours, he wheeled out the Amberoid, a bizarre gullwinged creation fusing elements of the Ambassador with, by our reckoning, Ford’s 1950s Anglia and Lexus’s SC430.
Unlike the Ambassador, it’s packed with state-of-the-art technology, from its Rolls Royce V12 through its triple seven-inch LCD screens with web access and videoconferencing facilities. The concept vehicle was a fully working, production-ready car pitched at India’s wealthy. But if they’ve made a sale, they’ve kept it very quiet.
Yet, in the face of all this seeming bleakness, Hindustan remains resolute in keeping the Ambassador on the road. In 2011, the company announced a major overhaul, upgrading its mass market models, adding upspec variants and expanding its dealer network, all with the aim of boosting sales to about 2000 units a month. Much of that hasn’t happened yet. But the ABC report suggested the company will later this year launch an update with new engine and brakes.
Picture courtesy of Tatiraju Rishabh/Wikimedia Commons
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Written byJeremy Bass
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