The Hindustan Ambassador was an automobile manufactured by Hindustan Motors of India. It was in production from 1958 to 2014 with few improvements and changes over its production lifetime. The Ambassador was based on the Morris Oxford series III model, first made by Morris Motors Limited at Cowley, Oxford in the United Kingdom from 1956 to 1959. (source Wikipedia)
the first car the husband had post marriage was a white Maruti 800 ...when we were transferred to South India ...the company Parry Agro gave us a Mahindra Jeep ...an 80s model and it was Awsum ...
when we shifted back to Assam in 1999 ...we sold the Maruti 800 and once we shifted to D. Tea.Estate...we were looking out for a car desperately ...seeing the deplorable condition of the road to and from town ...I was hell bent on buying an Ambassador ....as Luck would have it ...one of the Seniors in The Assam Company Ltd was looking out for a buyer for his wife's car ....
in Tea circles a Memsahib's car is the best maintained and least used car ....specially if she was a senior official's wife ....as seniors have an official car, a car the official uses for personal use and personal trips ...when I came to know the colour of the car...I insisted we buy it ....it was an excellent buy at 50,000 rupees ....
a car for a Tea Estate executive in India is their life line ....spl if the tea estate is in some remote wild life sanctuary or in insurgency riddled Assam .... we never know when an emergency situation would arise and we would have to flee the estate ....ergo the car is Always very well maintained ....in the company garage ....plus most estates in Assam and South were in areas with heavy and torrential rains ...which ensured that roads were difficult to maintain....estate roads in Assam were practically non existent...plus they tarred only two strips where the tyres would ply and the area between the tyres would be mud or grass filled ...
this car was a big help to me during both my pregnancies as this car has very good shock absorbers ...
one very distinct feature about foreign cars is that their chassis is very low ... however here in India the roads being very bad ....cars made with foreign collaboration had this small flaw ... however Indian made cars were designed keeping the road conditions in mind ... hence more sturdy ...
once I went back with my first child ....it was very convenient to make him sleep next to me on the bench seat... when my elder child started play group ....a large number of us would go to school everyday in the car ...my kid and me and a basket full of food and water for everyone ...my kid and me ...my househelp and a gardener too in case ..something went wrong on the way .... being on one's guard was a Constant there ...and then there was the chauffer ...
before coming back from school after my child was fed and was done with his ablutions ....we older people would have our food and then make a trip to town ...in case I needed anything or there was a company guest at home...and make the one hour drive back home ...
everyday going to my child's playgroup was like a mini picnic for him and me ....as for the first time I was going out on a daily basis ....
once I went back to Pune in Jan end, 2004 ....and when the husband put in his papers in June 2004...I was very keen that the chauffer be given the task of driving the car to Pune .... however the husband refused to listen to me and sold this car for 28,000 rupees ...it would have given us excellent service in Pune and maybe we would Not have had the terrible bike accident in 2006 ....
from 2004 June to December 2007 we had no car and went around in hired vehicles or the motorbike we had ....
this is a staid looking car according to majority of Indians ...however if one goes to the rural areas of India ...one can find the sturdy Ambassador serving valiantly ...even now ....
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