It's end of the road for Ambassador

NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: Since the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee opted for a sleek custom-made BMW in 2003, it's been steadily downhill for the grand old lady that had once ruled Indian roads. The common man had given up much earlier, eagerly embracing the zippier Maruti 800 when it was launched in 1983. Now seven decades after the first Ambassador rolled out, Hindustan Motors has put the brakes on its Uttarpara, West Bengal factory. "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 fledgling Indian car market of the '70s and early '80s but lost its lead when companies like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Ford came to India, relegating it to a mere 'sarkari' (government) vehicle. Sporting a red beacon, the vehicle had come to personify political and administrative status since its launch. 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 declining rapidly from a high of 24,000 units a year in the mid-1980s to under 12,000 a decade later and 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, which snatched the status of India's leading carmaker from HM in the 1980s, manufactures 5,000 vehicles daily. There are still a few devoted "Amby" fans who talk fondly of the heavy steering, the smoking radiator and other defects but for the car-buying public, it has lost its shine.   TOI