One of the few luxury items to have in 70’s was owning a car. There was no Audi or BMW at that time but the only Audi and BMW were Ambassador Car. Its road presence was like the Limousine of the present time, The great height, bulky look, the load-bearing capacity, and the most important one was to run on roads where there were no roads.
My Grandfather a great leader and a good politician at that time had purchased the one in white and he has almost covered the whole Maharashtra state in that car. He loved driving and going on long trips in that car, later as he aged he kept a driver, especially so he can still enjoy the journey in the car. That car has given him all sorts of experience of different cities, different people, and different lessons with the car itself from breaking down to fixing the car he has almost become a mechanic. The bulkiness of the car had saved his life many serval times ( that strong was its build quality). With the other brands in the market, The Ambassador still manages to keep its sales high to become the favorite or to put it nicely “It became the National Car”.
My dad and the rest of the families learned their driving skills and mechanics of car by this car only, As time flies The British Ambassador was sold to an Indian brand called ” Hindustan Motors ( HM )”. We sold the old and we bought the 2nd hand “HM” car called ” Grand Ambassador”. The car still has all its vibes with additional features of power window, power staring, and AC ( air conditioner). This was the time of modern cars where Ambi is giving a great fight to them.
And when I arrived in this world the car had already become OLD but the car was NEW for me, As new as a showroom one. With this Ambi I had traveled almost all the places where relatives stay and traveled mostly at night time, This is one the big reasons I love night traveling. The modern days car always dominated this space and Ambi did not make it to modern car. Later in 2011 the “HM” also shut down all its manufacturing units 🙁 .
We still have Ambi car in 2022, Most people makes fun of the car, judge the owner of the car, This all things does make me embarrassed. Also with having old car we need to maintain it and it is costlier to maintain such cars The Vintage Cars 🙂 its not cup of tea for everyone to do it. I don’t know why this embarrassment hurst me Ambi. You are and will always be the proud member of our family.