26.5.14

Ambassador : End of the Road


The downward drive for the grand old lady that had once ruled Indian roads began when the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee opted for a sleek custom-made BMW in 2003.
The common man had given up on the Amby much earlier, eagerly embracing the Maruti 800 when it hit the roads in 1983.
Now seven decades after the first Ambassador rolled out, Hindustan Motors has put the brakes on its Uttarpara factory in West Bengal.
“The company’s best efforts to revive the unit have failed. Given the circumstances, it has no alternative but to declare suspension of work at the plant with effect from May 24, 2014,” a spokesperson from the CK Birla Group company said in a statement on Saturday. Modelled on the British Morris Oxford III, the Ambassador commanded a lion's share of the Indian car market of the '70s and early '80s since rolling out for the first time in 1958 but lost its lead when companies like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Ford came to India, relegating it to a mere `sarkari' (government) vehicle. Though it is still the official vehicle for some of the country's elite, including the Army chief and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, most politicians have moved on to safer and luxurious SUVs and sedans from the likes of Mercedes Benz, Audi and BMW .
With Amby sales plummeting from a 24,000 units a year in the mid-1980s to less than 6,000 in the mid-2000s, the HM management struggled to position the car. In the final days of the Uttarpara plant, the 2,600-odd workers were manufacturing just five cars a day; Maruti Suzuki manufactures 5,000 vehicles daily . India's leading auto designer Dilip Chhabria, who had expressed interest in redesigning the classic, said the Amby could still wow the market.
But chances of revival are slim. Lack of fresh investments by the promoters, who now manufacture cars for Mitsubishi and Isuzu at a plant near Chennai, saw the Uttarpara plant fall on bad days. Attempts to fall in line with present day realities were not enough, with management being content selling Ambassadors. Perhaps, the flop experiment with Contessa discouraged further investment.
So when India moved to hatchbacks, HM had nothing to offer.


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