The Ambassador car has recently rolled into history. The Hindustan Motors began making this sedan in 1948, modeling it after a oncefashionable British brand, the Morris Oxford III. Amby has remained largely unchanged for more than five decades. From prime ministers and chief ministers to district collectors and police chiefs, all the agents of government had ridden in it and had conferred on it a sarkari sense of status.
It recalls an era when India’s policy of economic self-sufficiency meant that the domestically produced cars were the norm. Most of us grew up with the image of a snow white Amby stopping at a traffic signal, with a red beacon on top and a chauffer at the wheel.
Even now many in the rural India still view the white Amby as the de facto vehicle of officialdom. It began losing its dominance in the mid-1980s, when MarutiSuziki launched its low-priced 800cc hatchback. It slided back further in the....
