Ambassador Production Stopped as Power Shifts in Delhi

[P.J.]

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Ambassador Production Stopped as Power Shifts in Delhi

Hindustan Motors, part of the $1.6-billion (nearly Rs. 9,500 crore) CK Birla Group, has suspended production at its Uttarpara factory in West Bengal.

The maker of the iconic Ambassador car cited "very low productivity, growing indiscipline, critical shortage of funds, lack of demand for its core product the Ambassador and large accumulation of liabilities" as the reasons behind the suspension of work at the plant.


The Ambassador owes much of its popularity to politicians and senior government officials, who have stuck by the curve-shaped car despite little technological and design changes over the years. The Ambassador, also called the "Amby", is based on Britain's Morris Oxford, which became defunct in 1957.

The opening up of India's economy in the 1990s broke Ambassador's monopoly, though the big setback for the car came in 2003, when German made BMWs replaced the Ambassador as the prime minister's fleet. Bureaucrats followed soon, replacing their Ambys with swanky sedans.

India's Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi drives in the Scorpio, the best-selling utility vehicle by homegrown auto major Mahindra.

This change of power in New Delhi had a huge impact on Ambassador's fortunes. Ambassador sales dropped from 24,000 cars a year in the 1980s to less than 6,000 in the 2000s. According to media reports, Hindustan Motors churned out just five cars a day recently.

According to many analysts, the car could not keep up with the times. It is a fuel guzzler and maintenance costs are high.

"Had Hindustan Motors continued to evolve the Amby over the past 60 years without changing the DNA, it would have been the Rolls Royce of India," a newspaper quoted India's leading auto designer Dilip Chhabria as saying.

The sharp slowdown in India's economy and the consequent dip in car sales also impacted Hindustan Motors. India's once-booming car market has suffered a slump in recent years, with sales declining for the last two years.

Earlier this year, Maruti Suzuki stopped production of its best-selling model Maruti 800, a car that changed the face of the Indian automotive industry. It's not known if Hindustan Motors will start Ambassador production again, but it's certain that the Amby's good old days are behind us.

The silver lining is that the car still remains popular with taxi drivers, some politicians and tourists looking for a bit of nostalgia on India trips.


Hindustan Motors share traded 10 per cent lower at Rs. 12 on Monday. The stock underperformed the broader Sensex, which traded 1.5 per cent higher.

(With inputs from AFP)
Ambassador Production Stopped as Power Shifts in Delhi - NDTVProfit.com

 

[krish44]

AMBY is still available in large numbers as taxis in kolkata.I still feel most comfortable riding them on indian roads, there is something rugged and solid about it . fuel costs are low if one uses the diesel version. quite popular as taxis as they are roomy and has a large boot. would be unhappy to see it go away from roads.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

This white VIPs car was the power symbol of yesteryear bureaucrats.

This brand was known for comfort and travel by AMBY was considered a real pleasure.

In fact on those days, I mean in 50s and 60s, people used to call cars as ‘pleasure’, may be due to the travel pleasure one derives.

Though we had ‘Standard’ at Chennai, Hindustan Motors AMBY was the leader and was ruling the roads then.

It is sad that with the advent of new brands equipped with advanced technology and unique features, this product is slowly becoming an obsolete.

 

[vgane]

We should let go of such cars which are guzzling fuel..The seth(promoter) got his pound of flesh..Why waste money on an useless product which is an anachronism in the 21st century!!

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Sir,

Some of the products don’t last long. While everything change even some of these products change and they vanish.

For example, I loved Motor Cycle ‘Yezdi’ in my younger days. Similarly ‘Rajdoot’.

While nobody is using ‘Fountain’ pen nowadays, I still use it. When I go to Banks and at few other places, those who needs pen do asks for it on seeing it in my pocket. I share my pen,but they don’t, few simply return it.

I attended a Meeting recently. When I was taking down notes,the gentleman sitting by my side was looking at me strangely and asked with raised eye brows how come I still possess and use fountain pen.

The dawn of the millennium has marked the dusk of certain products which we love and some even go the extent of treating them as a member of the family.

 

[prasad1]

[h=1]Rust in Peace: India’s Ambassador Is a Zombie From Another Era[/h]All right, I am just going to say it. The Ambassador is stupid.


While some fans of the swollen sedan with a 1940s silhouette would call it classic, kitschy or even iconic, few would say it was a great — or even a very good — car.


Yes, it is sturdy and easy to fix. It has bouncy, sofa-like seats. And it comes with a sheen of respectability as for decades it has been the chauffeur-driven chariot of choice for India’s bureaucratic establishment.


But that does not excuse it for being badly built, overpriced and outdated.


You may not agree with my lack of love for this remnant of the license Raj, but car buyers came to the same conclusions long ago.


Indian consumers dethroned the former king of the road the minute they were given the freedom to vote with their rupees. Once they had an option to buy something more modern–which happened with the arrival of Suzuki in the 1980s–they switched.


Since then the Amby has been basically a zombie brand–kept alive more through regulation than innovation.


Last year only around 2,300 new Ambassadors were sold here even though the Indian auto market has grown into one of world’s largest, with close to 2.5 million cars sold in 2013.


Hindustan Motors announced last week that it has suspended production of the Ambassador indefinitely because of low productivity, “growing indiscipline” at its production plant and a lack of demand.

.................
If you are truly mourning the loss of the Ambassador, prove me wrong by leafing through your phone directory to find the local dealer, dial him on your rotary phone — or better yet, send him a telegram — and place an order before they shut the factory for good.


Rust in Peace: India?s Ambassador Is a Zombie From Another Era - India Real Time - WSJ

 

[V.Balasubramani]

[h=1]Till we meet again, my dear Amby - The Hindu[/h]
[h=2]As Hindustan Motors suspends production of the Ambassador, a look at what the car meant to a generation of Indians brought up in its time[/h]Sleek interiors, superb pickup, aero-dynamic design… the Ambassador car possibly stands for the opposite of such sales pitch jargon, yet the ‘Amby’ for several generations of Indians is the stuff of memories.

Earlier this week Hindustan Motors (HM) announced that they are suspending production of the Indian icon. The production of the car in India, which traces its ancestry to the British-made Morris Oxford III, was moved to Uttarpara in West Bengal from Gujarat in 1948.

For those of us who grew up in the 1950s and right up to the 80s, it was probably the first car of our memories. The first one we rode in, fought for the window seat as we struggled with the roll-down handle, stared at the mesmerising bunch of bobbing, plastic grapes hung on the rear-view mirror and imagined the air-conditioner’s cooling effect, all the while squeezed into the sofa-like backseat with seven or eight others.

Read More: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/till-we-meet-again-my-dear-amby/article6061550.ece

 

[tbs]

hi

i remember as JANAVASAM CAR AMBY in 70s and 80s.....the bridegroom sits with young boy in the car.....with petro max lights....

ever green memories....

 

[V.Balasubramani]

[h=1]An ode to the Ambassador – The Hindu[/h][h=2]The Ambassador fitted an Indian genius. It evoked terms like swadeshi, sarkari and seva[/h]Years ago, a few friends and I were talking about racing cars and drivers. We recited the names of legends, savouring each name like an exotic dish. My friends claimed Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss and John Surtees and I stuck to Juan Manuel Fangio, the legendary Argentinian. The only thing I knew about him was that he could tell the state of a car by listening to its engine. Fangio learnt it first as a farm boy working on tractors.

The group then played wish list announcing the cars they would buy when they were older and richer. One of their mothers was watching us with amusement and affection. Eventually as the game slackened, we turned to her and asked her about her favourite car. She looked at us enigmatically and then answered: “The Ambassador, the rest are engines, the Ambassador is a car.”

A way of life

Even though we were kids, the answer left us unsettled. We realised she was saying something profound but we could not quite place it. Later, we understood that an engine is a tool, even a fetish, but a car to her was a way of life. Sitting on a road divider, I realised she was right. Suddenly today’s cars looked snooty. They wear colours like the gloss of a woman’s lipstick. They combined machismo and theerotic. They were psychological projections but the Ambassador was a myth from a different world, a mnemonic of a different childhood.

Read more: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-ode-to-the-ambassador/article6062592.ece

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Ambassador of good times - The Hindu

It once ruled our roads. It still rules our hearts

In the 1990s, Bjorn Borg cut a sorry figure as he faced younger players with his anachronistic wooden racquet. This man, who picked up Grand Slam titles with the ease of someone gathering sea shells, put up a dismal show during the comeback trail, failing to win a single match. Tennis had shifted gears from finesse to power, and Borg was too stuck in the past to make the adjustment.

The Ambassador’s story shares similarities with Borg’s. A symbol of social significance and an icon of power for decades, the Hindustan Ambassador lost its way when the field got wider allowing for more cars to compete for the buyer’s wallet. With a design that seemed to be cast in stone, the Ambassador was pitted against sleeker modern cars that were responsive to even minor shifts in buyer’s preferences. The writing was on the wall, for everyone to see, so clear that aliens in outer space could not have missed it. And therefore, the news of Hindustan Motors stopping production of Ambassadors at its Uttapara plant in West Bengal has been received with more sadness than surprise.

It is actually not so much sadness as an unsettling sense of loss. The car has been so much a part of the landscape, so us, so Indian, that it does not feel right to have it removed from us.

Read more: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/ambassador-of-good-times/article6065940.ece

 

[V.Balasubramani]

‘Salim Khan drove me home when I bought my ambassador as I didn’t know how to drive then’

The erstwhile king of Indian cars, our very own Ambassador, stops production of the car that has been on Indian roads since 1948. The car that took its inspiration from the Morris Oxford III, built in the United Kingdom, was first gifted by Hindustan Motors to our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. It was a car which underwent minimal design changes from its original and at one point in time, was ranked the best taxi in the world by a British automobile television series. Many of us have learnt to drive on the rock-solid Ambassador as we were often told by our parents, 'If you can drive an Ambassador, you can drive any car.'

ALSO READ: H'wood celebs with customized cars

Well, having learnt my driving on it, I could vouch for that, though of course in today's automated times, our kids, may never get to see what a side gear is and how much effort it would take to change gears in such cars. For the longest time there were only two options, either you could buy the smart Fiat or the royal Ambassador. The USP of the Ambassador was that it was spacious, comfortable and, of course, a mark of being wealthy. A few days back, the Ambassador rolled out its last piece and we decided to talk to some of our celebrities who were proud owners of the good old Ambassador.


Read more: http://www.samachar.com/Salim-Khan-drove-me-home-in-my-ambassador-ogbaMQegdcf.html