The well maintained Ambassador car surprised Twitter users.
Nagaland minister Temjen Imna Along posted an inspiring tweet as the work week began on Monday. In the accompanying photo, he is seen getting into a car – a white Ambassador – probably heading to office. The car was a prime choice for India’s politicians and civil servants decades ago. Cavalcades of white Ambassador cars on the wide avenues of New Delhi, the seat of the government, was a familiar sight for Indians in 1950s and decades after, just like black limousines in Americans.
Despite discontinuation of its production in 2014, a small number of these Ambassador cars are still in use and the photo of one of them was posted by Mr Along on Twitter.
“It’s Mondaaaay! Let’s get ready for work! I too have an Ambassador,” the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said in his tweet.
Its Mondaaaay!
Let’s get ready for work!
मेरे पास भी एक Ambassador हैं pic.twitter.com/6HSutRJYU3
— Temjen Imna Along (@AlongImna) April 10, 2023
Within one hour, the post was viewed more than 24,000 times and liked by over 1,300 users.
“This car is an emotion to all,” commented one user. “A brand ambassador. Has a car of brand Ambassador,” commented another.
The well-maintained Ambassador car surprised other Twitter users.
Ambassador was manufactured by Hindustan Motors, a flagship company of the CK Birla Group. Modelled on Britain’s Morris Oxford, the Ambassador was the first car to be made in India, according to a company statement to news agency Reuters, and was once a status symbol.
But the car began losing its dominance in the mid-1980s when Maruti Suzuki introduced its low-priced 800 hatchback.
It lost further cachet and market share when global automakers began setting up shop in India in the mid-1990s, offering models with contemporary designs and technology.
In 2014, when the Ambassador was discontinued, the company sold about 2,200 unites, a tiny share of the 1.8 million passenger cars sold during the year in India, according to Reuters.
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