Had many taxi journeys in the Hindustan ambassador in India as a kid. Very big and soft riding, great for kids. Sadly the Kolkatta (my birth town) plant closed down many years ago. There is the odd Ambassador Taxi/hire care around but they're mostly for special occasions now. Also my Dad had the mk1 (German made) Beetle in the 70's so one of the few to have been in both cars :)
It shows how the "License Raj" held India back. In 1958 Nissan in Japan was building Austin Cambridges and Hindustan in India Morris Oxfords. Ten years later Nissan-Datsun introduced the Bluebird 510 which was a state-of-the-art, ohc engined, 4-wheel-independent suspension, practically an Alfa Romeo for the price of a Beetle but with better electrics. Hindustan...had put a different grille on the Oxford.
Even Soviets made better cars, planes in spite of being Government owned. I have no idea how Government could let Hindustan Motors continue without even trying for all these decades
dumb. top gear adjudged Hindustan ambassador as the best taxi. Hindustan Ambassador definitely added major automobile knowledge quotient in the country as opposed to private players entering, profiting and keeping their technologies propriety. Without this automobile knowledge in India, there would have been no Tata Motors either. Suzuki would not have come to India and partner with Maruti in the first place if India had no skilled automobile workers to show for.
I pretty much toured all of South India riding in the back seat in one of these. You had to switch the A/C off everytime you wanted to overtake. Some vivd memories. Very stately indeed
The isuzu 1.8d was bombproof, just like its baby brother the 1.5/1.7 fitted to corsas/astras in the 90s Would love a drive in an ambassador--one day.....
The 1.8 was a Isuzu petrol engine. There was also a 1.5 diesel which was just a 1.5 BMC engine converted to diesel (only 36 hp) by Hindustan Motors and a 2.0 Isuzu diesel engine. The Isuzu engines were very reliable but the 1.5 diesel was very sluggish and over stressed so could be slightly problematic but was still a very simple engine to work on.
By this time U.S. Customs was on to people who had been driving worn and rusted-out old German-made Beetles across the Mexican border, swapping the VINs over to brand-new Mexican ones and driving home in their "newly restored" cars.
As much as I would love to have either, they had one thing against them, the competition from the used market, meaning the price for an Ambassador or a South American Bug would still be above that of a good conditioned used VW bug or Morris Oxford. Which is why most car makes are constantly using millions on changing everything, sometimes for the worse. The place where this don't apply is 4x4
I wonder how much do they cost, provided you could still find a nicely maintained one, it would be a great deal to get 50s car made in 2014 :D Then perhaps you could just change some trim etc to make it more British, you would still make some nice money renting it as a wedding car.
