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NEWS
India's Ambassador laid to rest?
The axe finally appears to have fallen on the venerable Hindustan Ambassador after a 57-year tenure in the world's second most populous countryIt seems almost inconceivable that a car with drum brakes and leaf springs all around could still be on sale as a new vehicle in this day and age, but that's been exactly the case in the form of India's Hindustan Ambassador.
However, it appears as though that's finally about to change as production of the grand old lady of Indian motoring – essentially a locally made, badge-engineered version of the 1950s Morris Oxford III – has been suspended indefinitely.
The writing has been on the wall for several years, but rapidly shrinking sales and mounting losses – reportedly approaching 70 million Indian rupees ($1.28 million) every month – has prompted Hindustan Motors to halt production at its Uttarpara plant on the outskirts of Kolkata.
In a statement released on Saturday, Hindustan Motors cited "worsening conditions at its Uttarpara plant which include very low productivity, growing indiscipline, critical shortage of funds, lack of demand for its core product – the Ambassador – and large accumulation of liabilities."
The company sold about 2200 Ambassadors in the last fiscal year, a drop in the ocean when you take into account that 1.8 million passenger cars were sold in India during this period.
In the era up to the 1980s, the Ambassador had a virtual monopoly on the Indian market – only Premier Automobiles (which made local versions of the Fiat 1100 and Fiat 125) offered any real opposition – enabling it to tot up annual sales of 20,000 units and more.
However, the advent of Maruti (which makes Indianised versions of Suzukis) in the 1980s made a serious dent in the Ambassador's sales volumes, and now that several other manufacturers (Tata, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, etc) have entered the local passenger car market with far superior offerings in every sense, there's no place left for the Ambassador.
That said, the 'Amby' (as it is affectionately referred to in India) is still extensively used to cart around members of parliament and VIPs... as well as serving as humble black-and-yellow taxis (they're all yellow in Kolkata) in most metro cities.
Although the Ambassador's success in India was built largely on a lack of alternative offerings, the rugged character of the vehicle made it well suited to local roads, which range from patchy to downright diabolical for the most part.
Changes to the car over the past 45 years have been few. Visually, there have been tweaks to the headlights, taillights, grille, bumpers, front guards and bonnet, but these have been relatively minor, so the car still looks much the same as it did in 1957.
The interior has also been tarted-up over the years, scoring a revised dash layout, new steering and trim and so forth but, again, the basic character of the cabin has carried through to the current version.
The biggest changes have been under the skin, where the original model's BMC 1.5-litre pushrod engine, which cranked out a hefty 38kW, was ditched several years ago in favour of a 1.8-litre OHC Isuzu powerplant. A diesel motor was also added to the range as petrol prices began to soar in India.
Picture courtesy Ryan Hartmann/Wikimedia
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Written byGautam Sharma
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