 |
|
Pimp My Desi Ride |
…describe the most famous car strutting along India’s roads today, think of some of the qualities associated with hot automotive design….Sleek. Sporty. Sexy. Fast.
Now throw them out….None of those words applies to the Ambassador.
<
p>And in the Amby, we find a microcosm of Indian economic history –
TRACE the car’s journey through the last half-century and you can chart the rise of India’s post-colonial ruling class, its flirtation with socialism and its recent economic boom that has the world abuzz.
…As I journeyed all over India,” wrote Singh, who died in 1999, “I came to understand that if one thing can be singled out to stand for the past 50 years of India and its closed economy, now open and moving into the new millennium, it has to be the Ambassador.”
<
p>As they say, sometimes a dog’s so ugly, it’s actually cute and perhaps when a car is & remains this backwards, it’s easy to wax nostalgic. Whatever the case, the humble Ambassador turns 50 this year and given the transience of modern life, it’s hard not to take notice…
<
p>You can’t be desi and have spent anytime in da homeland without being able to relate to stories like this – “…police in north India once stopped an Ambassador with 27 people on board”
 |
|
A Thousand Wedding Garlands Await… |
The engines currently available are a 75 bhp petrol engine and a 50 bhp (37.3 kW) Isuzu diesel engine.
… And yet, somehow, that little 75bhp engine was able to claw its way up the washed out hill road to my grandparent’s house. Crazy. Alas, nearly every other aspect of the car falls in the same bucket –
“Dynamically, it’s one of the most unstable cars you can drive today,” said Bijoy Kumar Y, the editor of Business Standard Motoring. “The suspension is the same that it’s been for ages; they haven’t touched it. Going in a straight line, the Ambassador is fine. But when you have to brake, when you have to go around a corner, when you carry people who are very dear to you, I wouldn’t go with it.”
Kumar and others also fault the Ambassador for lacking contemporary safety features such as crumple zones, anti-lock brakes and air bags. India does not have stringent safety standards for cars, but industry observers say such standards may be adopted in the next few years.
“It’s nice to be romantic about the car,” Kumar said. “I was born in the hospital and brought home in an Ambassador…. But as a motoring journalist, I’m feeling guilty that this car is being produced.”
Methinks the other 26 people on board are a fine substitute for crumple zone. 
So while the rest of the world marched on through the post WWII economic boom, India was locked in a socialist arranged marriage to the Ambassador, a vehicle that can trace it’s original design to the British Morris Oxford of 1956. Why? Well, as with many things in life, blame the License Raj –
In the car’s glory days, the government’s protectionist quotas and tariffs meant there was almost no competition. The joke was that you could buy any car you wanted in India — as long as it was an Ambassador….WITH little to challenge it, the car rolled off the factory floor for decades looking and performing almost exactly the way it did in 1957.
And, intrinsic to just about any government involvement in market allocations, bureaucratic discretion inevitably became its own tradeable good. The system put up the roadblocks that only spiff money could remove –
The Ambassador plant in Uttarpara, near Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, produced 30,000 units a year. Demand so outstripped supply that buyers languished on waiting lists for months, even years. Those with connections, or a little extra cash for purposes of encouragement, got theirs first.
Whatever the case, those with a nostalgic lust can visit Hindustan Motor’s inexplicably slick Ambassador web page and design their own just like Uncle used to drive or discover the top 10 reasons to own your own piece of automotive history.
75 bhp is plenty. The speed on urban Indian roads are much lower. If you are doing 30 mph, you are doing well. With all the stop-and-go traffic and the slow sppeds, wouldn’t India be a good market for a hybrid, even an electric vehicle?
An Ambassador used to be the Prime Minister’s vehicle until 2002. The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee exchanged it for a BMW sedan Too bad the P.M.s don’t use one of these aam aadmi vehicles.
My dad was in the Indian Army, so I have fond memories of the staff car he had, which was an ambassador 🙂
My father worked for HM in the 1980’s – for almost 15 years, I think – and the HM colony was in Uttarpara near Calcutta. I spent pretty much every summer there (the rest of the year in a boarding school). When I returned to India in 2005, I noticed that Ambassadors were very much around. My American wife’s first car ride in India last year was in an Ambassador taxi in Calcutta, from the airport. She thought it was fantastically comfortable. “It’s like sitting on a living room couch!”, as she put it. (This post is rapidly beginning to sound like R.K. Narayan and it doesn’t help that I’m a Tamizh boy).
I also wish to remind readers that HM produced a luxury sedan once called the Contessa, maybe during the early years of the Maruti buzz as competition but it did not really take off. I may be low on the details and accuracy here.
Wow, an Amby limo! Is that to get people in the mood before a “shaadi waalah band” really revs them up?
With all the money they “stole” from Indians, HM never bothered to put some of it back into R&D or provide a better car for the people. The Ambassador is a shame and a disgrace.
I want one, just so I can finally get an appearance on “Pimp My Ride.” And I’m dying of curiousity for how they’ll fit the flatscreen TV, the XBox 360, the hot tub, and the 12-kilowatt sound system in it, and still have room for mah cousins from Jersey.
It’ll just make it that much easier for me to impress Padma when I pick her up.
You’re right– it was 1977, and there’s a story there…
The Ambassador succeeded not just because a closed economy halted progress in Indian automotive engineering, but because it is reliable, inexpensive and easy to repair, and most of all, it has a very comfortable ride , much like NYC’s late, lamented Checker cabs.Those of you who have only ridden a dilapidated Amby taxi, whose shock absorbers wore out eons ago don’t know what you have missed. Modern cars may have a smoother ride, but somehow, the Amby just has a seriously comfortable ride.
Shankar: India is at the cutting edge of alternative energy vehicles: http://www.greencarcongress.com/india/index.html used to have the latest news
Electric Vehicles are a commercial reality: http://www.revaindia.com/
In the 90’s CNG vehicles were Pushed a lot. In Bombay all taxi’s were CNG powered. CNG seems to have hit the mainstream now: http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/aug/19auto.htm
What I am truly interested in is the Air Car if it is ever produced http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4217016.html
No love for the Premier Padmini here? It reigns supreme.
As recently as last year, I did a 12 people in a shared taxi ambassador ride through the ghats of the Sahayadri’s outside of Bombay in blinding rain and everything that comes with it. Bah!! Who cares about the aerodynamics and stability… whatever the car lacks is made up by the skills of the Taxi driver.
premier padmini is the best!
Completely off-topic but quite homophonic, here’s a homage to another old standard. Sorry again to the non Tamilians on the site.
Unrealted comment – for Salil. I have sent a mail to the email listed on your blog. Please write back to me when you got time. Thanks 🙂
Ambi Mama in Chennai is also cheerin’ cuz he is probably paying less for his car than Paresh Uncle in Mumbai. That definitely pimps his ride. How much a car costs you in India depends on which city you buy it in.
I have heard this “fact” since i was a kid – ‘Ambassador is the tallest car in the world’. what do y’all think?
Sheesh, get a room already, you two!
I don’t know about that specific fact, but I assume that the Ambassador has higher than average clearance for its undercarriage given that it was explicitly designed for Indian roads. Or maybe the Ambassador was just trying to get into the Guinness book of world records.
My earliest memories of four wheelers are Ambassador, Maruthi 800 and Premier Padmini (aka Fiat, I don’t know why they call it that way).
………..and then there was this (exaggerated?) anecdote about the 27 people in a jeep (not an ambassador), for some reason a cop stopped the jeep and asked how many people are inside? On being told 27, the cop replied that if that were to be true, he would just let the driver go without any kind of penalty (bribe?), one by one they got out, there were 27 and then the driver and the cleaner…
Don’t know about the tallest, but during the awful socialist days, there used to be another dud car called the Standard Herald. It was built for midgets. Another dud was the infamous Badal made by Sipani motors. The Amitabh-Dharam song with that car can be seen here. [Yes, it is plagiarized from ‘That’s the way’]
Here‘s the original of ‘That’s the way’ by KC and the Sunshine bad. [Showing my age here]. Yes, it was funny even back then when I was in school in desh.
Ahhh – the Ambassador. A good Amby provides an outstanding quality of ride. Take a trip in the Amby used by thae top bureaucrats / ministers – the ride quality is amazing. Almost like being in a comfortable armchair. When the average speed in the cities is 30 kmph, what is the need for ABS, traction control etc. Very easy to repair and till the late 90s repairing a Maruti that broke down in the rural area was pretty tough.
My first “thappal” was in an Amby. Memorable occasion. In fact that was the first time I had seen the insides of a car and one can imagine the excitement 😉
Another auto product is the Enfield Bullet and its companion Jawa. Jawa is extinct while the Enfield survives by targetting the military and overseas market.
PS “Thappal” is a Mallu slang word and I dont know how to translate that into English.
One of my B-school profs used the Ambassador as an example of the network effort. Amby dominance meant that service stations could get by with maintaining a relatively small number of spare part SKUs at lower inventory levels and that service people only had one car to master, thereby increasing the value of Amby ownership. Jr. tycoons who would otherwise be in the market for Mercedes etc. would opt for an Amby for these practical reasons. Plus it can be run on S. Indian coconut hair oil if petro is scarce 🙂
” 4 · Rahul “Wow, an Amby limo! Is that to get people in the mood before a “shaadi waalah band” really revs them up?”
You are invited, Eliot-boy. Two nights at Casa Floridian in Gurgaon, free airport transfer, a welcome drink and three meals a day in our newly decorated Auntie’s Cafe and Lounge. (Air fare not included.)
Speaking of the Amby, there is still nothing in India that screams status like arriving in a chauffeur driven Amby with a flag, even if the flag is capped in a plastic sleeve. If there is a yellow light on the roof, all the better. The more expensive Indian cars say you have money. Amby says you have power.
There are less and less Ambassadors on the roads these days, at least in the big cities. Although even London has a fleet (I think you’ve written about them before). I’m as nostalgic about them as anyone, in a kind of self-imposed Cuban-retro-cars embargo way, but as someone whose driven an Ambassador flat out, I can assure you they are awful cars.
word on the street is that you can import the Amby into the US for pennies, 2.5% of the price you paid in India. if it’s a pre-1973 Amby, you don’t have to abide by the Dept of Transportation’s safety standards. and if it’s a pre-1967 Amby you can give the finger to US emission standards. take that US gummint@!
OMGWTFBBQ!! it’s India’s answer to the MG- it’s a beaut! like Floridian said, the Amby is an abacus to your saffron balls. the chauffeur driven Amby with flags is only slightly less powerful than the meanest machine to ever exist- the 70-80’s Benz’s of African dictators. god, i’m drowning in my own excitement.
word, word, word. you can jumpstart an Amby with two Campa Cola bottles. have you seen this car naked? my god, it’s absolutely gorgeous, everything is where you’d expect it to be. no casings, no fasteners, no portals to unknown places, no meandering wires to nowhere. now, if only India had proper tools…
cabs in london look a bit like ambis..is that a coincidence?
Can anyone tell me where I can find a diecast replica (say, 1:35) of the Ambassador? I searched for that in Chennai and Bangalore. No luck.
@21- Melbourne Desi:
Thappal= Groping? making out? dry hump?
In spite of nearly breaking my buttbone several times in Indian taxis, I’m a little curious as to how it would feel to ride in a BRAND NEW one…I wouldnt mind getting one imported here into the states, doin some suspension upgrades, and throwin’ some D’s on it 🙂 24″ deep dish on an Amby?? Look out!!!!
I like the Ambassador. It has a classy old fashioned look to it. I think they need to redesign it and give it a retro look like the Mini.
The Ambassador might have been India’s answer to East Germany’s Trabant.
It LOOKS like a gas guzzler.
The Ambassador might have been India’s answer to East Germany’s Trabant. Acoording to the site linked by V-node, it is India’s answer to the all-terrain vehicle.
Oh Floridian, you kid believing you are safe in the relative anonymity of the Internet, but believe me, if I was in the area at that time, even before the taking of a toast and tea, there will be not one indecision or revision, let alone a hundred. You could have counted on my enthusiastic dancing (not insipid like this!) at your re-baaraat. Happy 35th!
No von mises #25 and #26, that was hilarious.
I believe that in the interests of decency, you and Amby should get a room already.
Speaking of Enfield and Amitabh-Dharam pairings, here is the mother of all sidecar songs.
Oh! those Ambassador cars sure do bring back good memories. My grandfather had two, as taxi cabs. And they were so comfortable to ride in. In fact they still are, according to my last trip to Bombay in 2005.
Another auto product is the Enfield Bullet and its companion Jawa. Jawa is extinct while the Enfield survives by targetting the military and overseas market.
Yes, in fact the vehicle’s ad jingle was the national anthem for the proposed Khalistani state during the 1980s. [At least that’s how the popular joke went.]
Cliff: Thanks. I dont think any of those words fit. I think ‘Making out’ and ‘Dry Hump’ indicate an active involvement of the participants. Groping has a negative connotation as one participant actively discourages the activity. ‘Thappal’ has one participant (normally male) as an active participant while the other participant (normally female) is a passive but encouraging participant. I don’t know of an equivalent word – could the native speakers please help out?
Louie cypher – Excellent point about network effects.
Comparing the Amby with the Trabant seems rather unfair.
Floridian – You are right about the power / money equation with regard to cars. Most politicians would not use a new car (Camry / Accord/ Skoda) when they have access to an Amby. It is not just cost. Wonder why?
It is called sex in a marriage.
God, the ambi mama post was hilarious! My dad and his younger brother were periambi and chinnambi, and I also have a Mani mama on my mother’s side! Hurray!
Peripherally, since it came up, and since I’m a motorcycle nut…there are several companies that offer motorcycle tours in and around India / Nepal / Tibet.
Bike of choice? What else? The Enfield Bullet, of course.
I’m trying to figure out whether I’m terrified or excited to try it myself. Motorcyclist magazine had a writeup a few months back about an enduro in India on Enfield Bullets, and it was fairly comical. Here’s Time’s writeup of the same event.
I still maintain an Ambassador of 1976 vintage besides a Maruti 800 and an Indigo SX.I have dieselised it and remodelled the front end into the Mark 4 shape and airconditioned it.The car runs fabulously well and is extremely comfortable.I like it except for the fact that the body panels are prone to rusting early.HM should have seriously considered remodelling the vehicle with DC designs assistance.