Ambassador keeps on driving in India

Ambassador keeps on driving in India

By Jay Shankar

NEW DELHI (AFP): Some things remain quintessentially Indian.
The Taj Mahal. Curries. The Ganges. The Ambassador car.

Go anywhere in India and you will see the high-axled, pug-
nosed Ambassador, a throwback to the 1940s, barging its way
through the traffic.

Every taxi driver in the capital owns an Ambassador.

The Prime Minister and his cabinet -- by official decree --
all use them.

A foreign tourist, chancing upon a session of parliament,
could be forgiven for presuming he had gate-crashed a convention
of veteran car lovers.

Appearances, however, can be deceptive.

The Ambassador -- a direct descendant of the British Morris
Oxford -- is in danger of running out of gas after gracing Indian
roads throughout 50 years of independence.

The car, which monopolized the automobile market up until the
early 1980s, now records annual sales of 28,000, a mere seven
percent of the total. Of those, barely 8,000 are sold to private
buyers.

As such, the Ambassador represents a perfect microcosm of the
challenges faced today by Indian industry after decades of
government protectionism and patronage.

C.K. Rao, vice-president of manufacturers Hindustan Motors,
admits as much.

Under India's "permit Raj", a centralized, Soviet-style
economic system that went unchallenged from independence in 1947
to the early 1980s, it was the government which decided on car
production and pricing.

"There was a lack of motivation to do better, as prices were
controlled," says Rao.

"The car did not undergo any changes until 1993, when we
changed the engine and made new interiors."

By then, however, the rot had set in. In the shape of a
Japanese-inspired city runaround.

Maruti Udyog Ltd, a joint venture backed by Japan's Suzuki
Motor Corp, was to have been the plaything of Sanjay Gandhi,
younger son of prime minister Indira.

When he died prematurely, while carrying out aerobatics over
New Delhi in 1980, his mother decreed the project to create a
"people's car" should continue.

Today, around 75 percent of the entire car market is claimed
by Maruti's 800cc model.

It is modern in style, economic and rushing off the production
line in vast numbers. The Ambassador -- hand-built, low-tech and
with all the maneuverability of an ocean liner -- has been made
to look dramatically dated in recent years.

Competitors

To add to the woes of Hindustan Motors, there are now a dozen
other overseas competitors, such as Peugeot, Mercedes Benz,
General Motors, Daewoo and Honda, who have entered the Indian
automobile market in recent years.

The writing, it seems, is on the wall.

Except that this is India, and these are Indian conditions.

No car yet designed can tackle the country's many potholes
quite like the Ambassador. No car yet imported can cope with
India's rural conditions.

And whenever the Ambassador does break down, there is someone
with the ingenuity and know-how to repair it in every one of the
country's 600,000 villages.

Perversely, the Ambassador's greatest strength is that it can
cope so well with the country's infrastructure weaknesses.

Rao, while accepting that the battle for market share is
already lost, believes the car, now equipped with a Japanese-
built engine, can survive in its niche for a while longer. There
are even plans to increase production to nearer 40,000 a year.

"We know the value-offering cannot be matched by any car," he
says. "It's spacious, steady and comfortable.

"It is not a car for the cities. It's appropriate for the
majority of Indian roads. As long as the roads are bad, the
Ambassador is the right car. So it is important that we do not
contemporize it. We will not change its design.

"It has become a part of the landscape. Any village mechanic
can repair the car. And a family of more than 10 can travel in
it."

The Ambassador's critics, in contrast, say the company's
inability to innovate during its years as a pampered government
favorite reflect perfectly independent India's continuing
industrial failings as it reaches its 50th birthday next month.

Perhaps, however, the ailing Ambassador will have the last
laugh, embarking on a cult career to match that of the Volkswagen
Beetle and the British Mini.

Last year, Hindustan Motors exported around 300 Ambassadors.
Some went to Japan, with the rest returning to the land of their
forefathers in Britain.