The Ambassador could have evolved, had the promoters of the company that made it decided to let it evolve. In India, we have a perfect example of evolution in the Royal Enfield. It now has a modern engine and modern brakes
Almost every Indian between the age of 30 and 50 has fond memories inside an Ambassador car, unless of course they lived in the western part of the country, where the Premier Padmini ruled. These two cars remain the most potent symbols of times past. A time of missed opportunities for India and a time that thankfully most young Indians never knew.
It is worth remembering that earlier this year, after 30 years of production and being a far more potent symbol of India, Maruti-Suzuki stopped production of the Maruti 800. Yes, a few tears were shed but not as many as are being shed for the Ambassador. Which is strange given that millions of Indians most likely had their first proper driving experience in a Maruti 800; it was the first car this columnist regularly drove.
So why did the Ambassador become an icon and not the Maruti 800IJ For one, there was no ‘one’ Maruti 800 — unlike the Ambassador, the car evolved over the years; there were three generations of the car. The Ambassador evolved but painfully slowly, and most not at all over the last two decades of its life. Which is why it possibly became an icon; and until the Government started swapping out Ambassadors in favour of cars from Maruti a few years, a ‘lal-batti’ Ambassador was the ultimate symbol of power on Indian roads. There are two products that liberated India from that tyranny: One was the Maruti 800 and the other was the four-stroke motorcycle epitomised by Hero Honda products.
Foreigners spoke of the Ambassador as an icon, because to them it harked back to an India where elephants roamed the city streets (they still do, but thankfully infrequently). It reminded them of India being an ‘ancient land’ because she had an ancient car. The Ambassador, even the later models with floor-mounted gears, was god-awful to drive, coming from the fast and nippy Maruti 800 into an Ambassador was like travelling in a time machine. In fact, the few private Ambassadors you see on Delhi roads nowadays most likely will be wearing diplomatic plates.
Yes, the rear bench was comfortable, but the car was a death-trap in most collisions, the old-school steering column which unlike even Maruti cars did not collapse invariably impaled the driver. Crumpled Ambassadors were once, a common sight beside Indian highways, and they were not a pretty sight. An old joke among automotive writers is to describe bad brakes as ‘milk bottle caps’; that did not do justice to the Ambassador, coupled with its thin tyres, it possibly is partially responsible for the fatalistic attitude Indians have towards driving on highways.
Both of this columnist’s grandfathers had Ambassadors; I remember my maternal grandfather’s car more. It was a early 1960s Black Mark 1 with a bright, red leather interior with the number-plate DlF 147. It was a car of its time, and he held on to the car as long as he could drive. My paternal grandfather on the other hand had no such sentimentality towards his Mark 3 from the late-70s. Maybe because he travelled abroad a lot and saw just how ancient the Ambassador was.
The Ambassador could have evolved, had the promoters of the company that made it decided to let it evolve. In India, we have a perfect example of evolution in the Royal Enfield. While the current basic ‘Bullet’ looks pretty much the same as the 1950s motorcycle; it has a modern engine, modern brakes a modern gearbox, and is extremely reliable. Roadside mechanics might complain that they cannot service these motorcycles, but their reliability has improved so much that owners do not need to stop at roadside mechanics.
In December 1983, when the first Maruti 800 rolled off the production line, it too was a car of its time; and it evolved over the years. It got larger, more efficient but its company also evolved to give Indians more choice. It is not as if Hindustan Motors did not try; they brought in the Contessa, which unfortunately like the Standard 2000 of the same era was old 70s British technology. Even by the mid-1980s there was a young aspiring India which did not want to drive the cars of his or her parents. The Maruti represented something new, something modern.
Yet, as the Maruti evolved, it gave us the Zen, the 1000 and the Esteem — car that have also gone to the automotive graveyard. Some of them might have been produced for a few years too long, but cars come and cars go. Yet, the Ambassador kept rolling off the production lines nearly unchanged, as a stead supply of Government and taxi orders kept it going. A few months ago, the BBC show, Top Gear, ran a segment that declared the Hindustan Ambassador the ‘best taxi in the world’. Fans of the car have been quoting this segment, overlooking the satire in that show.
Many reasons have been given for the Ambassador’s demise, but there is one fact that is also important. The following year, if things remain on plan, the Government will introduce car-crash testing, as is done in Europe in the New Car Assessment Programme. Earlier this year, several popular Indian cars were taken to Europe and all failed the tests, thanks to a lack of active safety features. Some of these cars have added active safety features now, others are being re-engineered to meet norms from 2015. One reason Maruti stopped production of the Maruti 800 was that the car would have far too expensive to re-engineer to meet the proposed safety norms.
The open question is: Could the Ambassador have met the next year’s safety normsIJ On the face of it, it might appear that a car that effectively dates back to the 1950s and indeed shares some panels with the old Morris Oxford might have failed. So is that the real reason the Ambassador was withdrawnIJ One can’t say for sure, but it might well be the case.
The Ambassador served India well once upon a time. However, it lived 20 years too long, and not every person or thing ages like the Rolling Stones. Many people become crotchety and cranky in their old age, but many others just look pitiful. Such was the case with this blast from our past.