Hindustan Ambassador - Optional Extra 

The reason why the Ambassador outsold other cars was its backseat. It was like travelling on your sofa; it was so comfortable and spacious. In contrast, the Premier Padmini sold very well in parts of western India - where it was also manufactured. It was better suited for the steep roads there; the Ambassador was underpowered for such roads.

you know, i only noticed the LED-ring because you pointed it out :D

Here's an idea since the Hindustan ambassador was also used as a taxi cab why not do a video on the London taxi or the Checker Marathon cab

So the reasons the Opel cars didn't do well at all in India were: 1) Lack of storng brand image 2) GM India's constant flip flops 3) The Astra that was sold in India was the older generation while the rest of the world received the new one. It was well built but for the price and image it was sold on didn't appeal to new age Indian buyers, who were already accustomed to privately imported Japanese vehicles. 4) Opel's after sales and service network was laughable to say the least. GM eventually phased out the brand in 2003 in favor of Chevrolet 5) The Corsa was available as a hatchback, sedan and wagon but by the time it arrived it was too late sadly.

These were really good videos. They took the term "Flogging a dead horse" to a whole new level !.

In india cars are still bought even if it is a 15 year old design ,2008 Volkswagen polo and Fiat Punto were selling till 2020 In every segment u can see an old model still selling very well

The Corsa didn't sell because I'm comparison to the other small cars, especially the 800, it was more expensive to repair, less reliable, not as fuel efficient and not as well marketed. The reason why the 800 took over is because it was a reliable fuel efficient car with a big service network. Many foreign brands don't realize that being able to get a car repaired at a shop on the side of the highway was important.

Don't know about the Herald, but I have rode a later model Padmini and I can tell you the ride quality of the Padmini was an absolute disaster. Every jerk can be felt and it had considerably less power, not only on paper but also can be felt while driving. Additionally, according to some owners Padmini had rusting issues. The Ambassador on the other hand was much more comfortable and had more power. Perhaps these are the reasons the Padmini didn't sell well. Interestingly, there is a video on the drag race between the Ambassador and the Padmini on the Autocar India RU-vid channel. On a different note, the main difference between Opel and Maruti-Suzuki was their dealer and service centres. Even today Maruti Suzuki has more dealer and service centres than any other manufacturer, although their cars are cheap but not of great quality. Opel cars although were good but their service centres were considerably less in numbers and spare parts were of quite steep in price.

The Hindusthan Ambassador had lots of features that appealed to the masses. It had a strong body, lots of ground clearance that is now associated only with SUVs, it was spacious and had a reasonably powerful engine (three versions were available). This car could go anywhere. It was the ideal vehicle for a country like India with lots of unpaved roads, forests, rivers and mountains. It also did wonderfully well on the waterlogged streets of Calcutta and the muddy, inaccessible parts of rural India where only bullock carts could venture. Lots of car enthusiasts still retain it.

The reason that the Corsa and Astra didn't sell all too well, is because despite being good cars they, in the context of the spending power of a regular Indian at the time, were expensive. They were sold at a premium over other brands, because of the tag of "German Engineering" associated with it. Additionally, parts and service were expensive, and the fuel economy was low. The market simply had other priorities. 'Costs' was the keyword Marutis on the other hand, were cheap. After the initial introduction of the 800 (original alto), the market had fallen in love with the brand. They quickly become a favourite because they were light, economical, and compared to what was available here at the time? quick. It had the same effect on the entirety of the population, as perhaps the original golf did in Europe to enthusiasts. Once the love was in place and nearly 20 years had passed, Maruti Suzuki had transformed into a company which wasn't "desirable", as much as a brand that people were just used to . The bad built quality, nauseating looks, complete absence of safety equipment was acceptable to the market at the time, just because it was light on the wallet. The market since, has changed. And though Maruti Suzuki is still the largest carmaker in the country, their market share is on the decline. To counteract this, they have been working with Toyota - they have launched two Badge engineered products (and I'm being kind, saying "engineering", because literally nothing except the badge has been changed from Suzuki), but Now Suzuki intends to bring Toyota's hybrid system into really small cars. Time will tell. Skoda on the other hand, did the opposite from Opel. Instead of placing themselves "above suzukis", they placed themselves "below Mercedes". Skoda is arguably more favoured than VW here because of this. They've been considered "Luxury on a budget" here since they launched the Mk1 Octavia here in 2002.

An old british vehicle, which became indian, which is currently re-imported and a strong seller are…Royal Enfield bikes with acceptable quality. They were probably a bit too early with the Ambassador imports, but I guess the safety standards would become a problem later.

🤣 love the bloopers! Also well worth documenting the Opel/Vauxhall Corsa the driving instructor/first buyer favourite including the terrible C'mon advert and associated toys. A common car yes but there must be a reason and it was certainly a phenomenon of my growing up... If you excuse the hateful Tigra B which shared it's platform and mechanicals

Maybe you could do one about the Enfield India Bullet motorcycle. India was a great example of "If it ain't broke why change it?" mentality that we lost in the west due to consumer culture. "What? Your car is 6 years old? You sad git! Buy one of these of all your mates will think you're lame!!"

Actually like the second to last update quite a bit. Those bumpers really improved the look. So why did they have to widen it? My guess would be engine wouldn't fit but you didn't say.

If I stumbled on the British import version of the 90s now at the right price and in good nick I would buy it. The entire setup appeals to me.

The one time I have ridden in a cop car was in Calcutta ....in the back of a not-very-old Ambassador. No, I wasn't under arrest, I was being chauffeured to the Grant St thana for a tour of where my uncle used to work many years ago.

The Corsa in India had an engine made in Australia even though it was sold as a German car. Maybe one of the reasons.

A video on the corsa story would be great at some point😉 great video , love these extras

Great video as always! Bloopers are always welcome, again and again.

I noticed in your original video you mentioned that Hindustan Motors briefly tried to build the Pingle. That was by HAL. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is a govt owned company and is in no way connected to Hindustan Motors except for sharing the name. India is historically known as Hindustan.

Hi, Would love to see the Hindustan Motor come up with something which is not for the masses but rather for executives, a real luxury liner. Something which is like the Toyota Century. A car which is the craftsmen tribute, a vehicle which not many people know about but surely has a class.

Ambassador is still a nostalgic car. A little tweaks here & there with their designs & aerodynamic changes would have done wonders to AMBI. The funny thing is that when we tried to change its cult design through photoshop it looked like aston martin. The other negative is hindustan motors never built or developed an engine of their own even after all these years.

The Enfield got a revival 10 years ago, in India there is a market for heavy classic looking vehicles, a true amasador true to its original design like Enfield , will really do good.

This is an interesting car and I would have never known about if it were not for that Top Gear Special (Series 20 Episode 2) from 2011.

since the ambassador was sold to PSA groupe. for every year, the psa groupe always releases some info about this & that for the ambassador car but there is no concrete evidence. main problem is many indians love the old design. ambi owners expect psa group to keep the design, make the car lighter & fuel efficient, update the interior to modern standards, give lots of powertrain options and have better customer service & sale.

When a car fails in India, it’s usually because it didn’t provide the best mileage in the price range.

The new Ambassador being in development is just a rumour that has been floating around for a long time, and especially since PSA bought the rights for the Ambassador name. Most likely is that it is used as a ploy for free marketing, as Hindustan Motors and PSA are partners now. The Citreon C5 is being assembled in the Chennai plant that PSA bought from Hindustan Motors, and is just their introductory model as their main mass morket model - the C3 (which was developed specifically for India and to be built in India for export too) is still some time away. Hence, PSA is using this to keep interest up for their new products I assume. Even if PSA is actually thinking of relaunching the Amby, it might be an EV. As most of the disposable income in India is concentrated to the younger generations, who are nuetral towards the Amby or even have negative emotions towards it (after all it represents an old India that was closed off and stagnant), it really doesn't make sense to release a new Ambassador. Few enthusiasts might be attracted, but the vast majority of Indian car buyers simply have moved past from that stage, which also shows why PSA has launced Citreon here and not a relaunch of the old Hindustan Motors. Hindustan Motors for all intents and purposes is dead now, but their parent group - the CK Birla group is still around and doing well in their industrial niches. Your videos have always been great, its just that this one is straight to the heart as its about India so I enjoyed it a lot more! Cheers!

MAKE A VIDEO ON HINDUSTAN CONTESSA ALSO. A LUXURY CAR BASED ON VAUXHALL VICTOR FE. THATS ALSO TRADEMARKED BY HIND MOTORS. AND ON BIG CAR.

My first car was a 1954 Morris Oxford Series II in Petrol Blue. I was in my first year of university and tired of waiting for the number 65 bus (the classic story that you waited for an hour and then along came three) I announced to my family that I was going to buy a motorbike. My father was against it as his best friend's son had died in a motorbike accident so he lent me his spare car, the above-mentioned Morris Oxford. It was a great car with a bench seat in the front and a column gear change so you could get 6 people in it comfortably. It had leather seats and an enormous boot and sat really well on the road. My only problem was the fan belt which drove the dynamo and had a short life so I always carried a spare and a spanner to change it. I ran it for a couple of years until some tw*t pulled out of a parking space right into my path and I didn't have the time or space to avoid a collision. Obviously, the cost of repairing it was more than the value of the car, so my insurance company wrote it off for £80. I managed to get it home from London to North Wales but it proved too expensive to repair and I ended up buying a 1966 Morris Minor for £250 to replace it. They say you never forget your first car and I often wonder what it would be like to own one now.

Big nostalgia in this area like Royal Enfield. Luckily they have stepped up and figured out how to keep the look and feel of the past yet give the modern market what they want

Do you think you could do a video on the Hillman Hunter / IKCO Paykan? Very similar story with being built for ever and basically being a monopoly in the Iranian market for decades

A GOOD VIDEO. NEXT TIME, MAKE IT ON BIG CAR. WITH MORE INFORMATION.

There is a popular lore about why Hindustan Motors did not upgrade the Ambassador design. One of the senior managers had said that they had got some of the world's top designers together in a committee to suggest improvements but the committee reported back that it is a wholesome design, no improvements are necessary. Hence, any plans for overhaul were deemed surplus to requirements.

I owned a Herald in the 1980's. The rear axle was not capable of handling the roads (or lack of good roads) in India. The Herald had a stub axle from the transmission differential. The stub axle had a flange connecting to the wheel axle with four bolts. Inevitably these bolts would work themselves loose and snap off ... thereby stranding you!! The Ambassador, on the other hand, was strong enough to handle anything those roads could throw in its way. The first FIAT was the 1100 Millicento - many years before the model that you showed that was launched as the Padmini. The FIAT problem was that the distributor was very low - and would be flooded as soon as the street was flooded in the monsoon. It was not uncommon to see a long line of those cars stalled whenever roads were waterlogged!

Hindustan motors is still a functional company, Their Chennai plant is leases to Citroën. C5 and C3 are manufactured there.

Fuel economy is what matters in india

The Suzuki/Maruti is also everywhere in Pakistan. Theyre used as cabs and are all painted yellow and black. At least that was the case back in 2014 when I was last there.

Opel Corsa was sold at almost 2-2.5X price of the Maruti Suzuki..it was marketed as “Achtung baby” and German quality… in reality it never made sense in India as Astra and Astra Club were 3-4X times more expensive than the Maruti Suzuki anyways🙂 Service network , spares availability, cost of repair were some of the other factors. There were also cars like the Peugeot 309, Daewoo Ceilo, Fiat Uno, Ford Escort by the 1990’s in India. By the early 2000s Hyundai, Honda (sold its City in India as “Gem of an engine and a jewel of a car”) were all picking up sales momentum thanks to the strong IT driven economy / boom🙂 Good job once again!

07:10 That Minor looks like one of the pre-widening narrow prototypes. Very interesting to see one on the road.

i wanted one (ambassador) LOL but no left hand steering wheel lool so i could not import one as for the corsa it didnt win because Indian people are very caution when spending their cash and they know that Japanese cars are the better choice for your their money in terms of reliability , cost of operation and availability of spare parts ,,,they look at all points and angles before putting down such a large amount of cash , well for an indian citizen who is working hard for his money atleast not including rich people ofcourse just look at them when they shop at mega marts, they dont buy anything they go for specific items and they tour the entire market looking for the best bang for their buck (best deal) and difintly dont buy stuff just to try it they have to be sure of the product before buying it they have been like since for ever

GM had also brought in the opel vectra to target the upper class. But failed miserably. The cars they got in, corsa, sail, vectra all had good build quality with the worst expected service routine. What's the use if you sell a car and offer little to none of the customer service. Maintaining those unreliable cars was a head ache. Non availability of spare parts, lesser mileage, poor service network, a poor brand image. Indian economy was an up and coming one, people preferred low cost, low maintenance cars which would run longer on a tank of gas. Maruti offered that. Ambassador was built like a tank. You don't see the older versions of maruti 800 running but you will still find the ambassador in most parts of the country. Built to run forever.

@LittleCar / BigCar - *Elysée, not "Elyseé," and the weight is on the final syllable's "eé," pronounced long, not on the middle syllable's "y," which is pronounced short, almost clipped.

The Morris Oxford aka Hindustan Ambassador should have formed the basis of the Farina B instead of the inferior Austin A55 Cambridge, with a subsequent rebody allowing it to be the Indian built British analogue of the Fiat 125 / Polski Fiat 125p. The Baby Hindustan aka Morris Minor meanwhile could have done pretty well in India had it received larger 1098-1275cc (instead of the earlier 800-950cc) engines earlier and a three-box Austin A40 Farina style rebody, followed by say a Hindustan version of the Marina / Ital to replace both the Baby Hindustan and Ambassador.

TATA Indica killed Ambassador and performed much better on the roads. Ruled for 10-15 years and got replaced by newer cars.

Two things that MOST fussy Indian customer looks at - - Mileage (avg km per liter) - cost of maintenance esp spares Maruti always wins out over others. Until now only Hyundai to an extent has made the cut, not the Corsa.

I always wondered about the Indian Oxford and this channel is so much more interesting than… yawn.. just doing a Google search.

The length of time the Morris Oxford and the Hindustan Ambassador lasted shows the design ability of Alec Issigonis. I did not think that any car would last around 50 years in production with only minor face lifts and updates. Alec Issigonis also designed the Austin Mini that lasted 40 years.

Thanks, I always enjoy your videos. However..... You save the problem with the Morris Minor is a well-known story but I don't know the story about the Morris Minor being too skinny. I would like to hear more about that

Apparently here in India the rumour is that HM working with PSA to make Ambassador ev.🚗🔋

Corsa was a petrol guzzler and expensive service coupled with pathetic dealers n general motors

Lovely work, always hankering for an Ambi

I hadn’t noticed the (indeed) very sign, let alone the reflections, until this video. 😁

5:04 tbh Opel Corsa, Astra was great cars of 90's & late y2k's here in India🇮🇳. But the issue was OVERPRICING & FUEL Economy. Maruti 800, alto, Omni VAN, MG413 GYPSY all were value for money & Suzuki's reliable best fuel economy then. After LPG(liberalisation, Privatisation, Globalisation) of '91 market opened & Maruti-Suzuki got an upper edge to middle class customers. At that time here who comes first always winner. Suzuki tapped Indian market at '86 and here we go, almost 40% market share they are having till date here🇮🇳. And ans. of ur question is, in India 20 years prior to today were suspicious to pricy cars... sort of luxury buy... A White Elephant. Corsa wasn’t a good deal to us, middle class buyers as low to medium per capita income. *WILL Love to see another Indian cars in 'BIG CAR'* Thanks 🤞

(an i3 kind of car as in something with batteries and rear wheel drive would sell well)

That car in the turning video has a turning radius the size of the moon ^^

Curbs live in fear of the Hindustan Ambassador.

Colonial mindset. Good think Tata came along.

Corsa did not do well because it didn't have 4 doors.

Sir the mitsuibishis and opel though I agree had good products but failed to face the competition thanks to poor management and aftersales,Although Opel was replaced chevrolet in mid 2000's till 2017 following same mistake and again in 2020's by Ford India leaving jeep as the only US automaker in our country.Though Their products were exciting but they failed to understand the needs of Indian customers eventhough they launched in between the the Indian catered ones.They need affordability,minimum features matching their list,fuel efficient,good safety and service avalibilty and good design

I suspect, it was only a 2-door!🤺

My grandpa had one. Good car. Edit: I'm Indian obvs.

I like how those videos are called "optional", as if watching Big Car was mandatory ;-)

i read somewgere that the Indians at that time regarded angular shaped vehicles like the maruti as more 'modern' compared to jelly bean design cars of the 90s, perhaps they reminded them of Hindustanis

Lack of after sales service and re-sale value !!

Perhaps if they'd concentrated on improving quality and refinement etc instead of pointless cosmetic updates it would still be around. Morgan found that if you hold your nerve with a design it eventually becomes timeless...

Thank you! It’s a great show 😆

The best part of the series are these extras 👍♥️ Peace Charlie 🇬🇧

Issue of Opel was poor mileage.

The failed Minor promo shoot 🤣 1st Location - That's Marble Arch, London behind the car and fence 2nd Location - Buckingham Palace end of Birdcage Walk 3rd Location - The east end of The Mall, just before Admiralty Arch. I never did like Morris dancing

Could it be said that the last Morris was not the Ital? MG cars are still being made today and, as we all know, MG stands for Morris Garages. Or am I talking bo**ocks..?!

Probably why the Opel Corsa did not do well is because Indian love five (05) door hatchbacks. The Corsa was a three (03) door hatchback.

I think in two comments on the two parts of the video. If in 2000, drivers were expected to replace parts on their Ambassadors, when not self employed, that in itself was a scandal. In return, you have explained the main part of my other comment. Taoism. Thank you.

Recently a story regarding Hindustan motors Ltd is doing rounds . One of their top officials said that they have signed an MoU with an European company to manufacture electric two wheelers for India, and then manufacture four wheelers. They plan to do it at their current factories in West Bengal and Chennai. So people in India are thinking that the Hindustan Ambassador may come back in an all new electric avatar.

I have a vague recollection that Hindustan also tried to sell the Ambassador in Australia in the 1990’s. I think they were trying the retro thing here too.

Awesome information. Great pictures. Very good video . As always , just great 👍

labmaster could be a very cool name for an American car. Or for a quirky machine in a sci-fi movie.

Please a video of the Paykan Arrow soon?

a classic

Cool 📻🙂

Ahhh! Should have watched this before the comment on the base video. That will teach me.

Corsa was very costly, Marketed here as German. In 14 districts of my State had less than 3 showrooms. MARUTI at the time had almost 25 dealer outlets

Have you been to India ?

There is one very strong British connection that people are missing and that is the Amby became just as Indian as the English language itself. There are more people speaking English in India than in all of UK. Indian English has just like Amby gone through a number of modifications in India both in accent and in vocabulary and not only that but it has even been integrated in to the local languages in India (you got that right, not just language but languages!) and still evolving. Just to give you an example, the middle class in India speaks every other sentence in English, combined with their local language and it surprises no one! Let us hope that the PSA in India manages to revive and evolve the Amby just like the English language there.

The GM cars didn’t do very well because there weren’t rugged like Hindustan ambassador

❤️👍😂

I suppose in india a car is more of a family vehicle rather than personal so corsa having just 2 doors was not a good fit.