To those who grew up in the 1960s and 70s, Ambassador wasn’t just a car; it was an inseparable part of India’s urban landscape. It quickly became a national icon and continued to dominate Indian roads till the 1980s.
The iconic brand Ambassador, which used to be a symbol of the high and mighty in power corridors, has changed hands, with Hindustan Motors selling it to European auto major Peugeot for Rs 80 crore. It is not clear if Peugeot will use the Ambassador brand for its cars in India. A questionnaire mailed to the French company remained unanswered.
“Hindustan Motors has executed an agreement with Peugeot SA for the sale of the Ambassador brand, including the trademarks, for a consideration of Rs 80 crore,” Hindustan Motors on Saturday said in a regulatory filing.
Ambassador cars which sold nearly 24,000 units a year in the mid-1980s, saw its sale plummeting to less than 2,500 units in 2013-14 before the production at HM’s Uttarpara factory was suspended. Modelled based on the Morris Oxford series, the Birla Group began production of Ambassador cars in 1958.
“We have executed an agreement with the Peugeot SA Group for the sale of the brand Ambassador, including the trademarks… We intend to use the proceeds from the sale to clear dues of employees and lenders,” a CK Birla Group spokesperson said.
The PSA Group had inked a partnership with the CK Birla group to re-enter the Indian market and earmarked an initial investment of 100 million euros (around Rs 700 crore) to set up vehicle and powertrain manufacturing in Tamil Nadu. Peugeot had a brief three-year presence in India in the mid-1990s.
The long-term partnership will allow both companies to participate in the growth of the Indian automotive market, which is expected to reach 8-10 million cars by 2025, from the current 3 million in 2016.
On May 24, 2014, the inevitable happened when work was suspended at the Uttarpara factory of Hindustan Motors. Hindustan Motors was set up in 1942 by B M Birla, C K Birla’s grandfather. In 1948 the company shifted its plant in Uttarpara in Hoogly in West Bengal for making Ambassador cars. As late as 2014, the company shut its operations at Uttarpara and in 2015 offered VRS to identified employees.