Iconic Padmini, Ambassador on their last legs, but still holding up

As India gears up to celebrate its 70th anniversary of Independence, two of its oldest car brands are still chugging along in the taxi fleets of Kolkata and Mumbai.

The Ambassador and Premier Padmini may seem outdated in today’s contemporary ecosystem of Ubers and Olas but are still nostalgic reminders of an era gone by. Their manufacturers, Hindustan Motors and Premier Automobiles, have shut down their vehicle operations but their iconic models are still bravely hanging in there.

Mumbai’s kaali-peelis , as the yellow-and-black taxis are known, barely have a couple of hundreds of Padminis left in their fleet of nearly 25,000 cars largely dominated by the Hyundai Santro. This is a far cry from the time the model, popularly referred to as Fiat, dominated this space.

The Padmini was actually the face of Mumbai and a status symbol through the 1970s till Maruti came along with its 800 and knocked it off from its pedestal. Premier continued manufacturing the model at its Kurla plant in Mumbai till the late 1990s but had to eventually slam the brakes on its production. Two decades have passed and the Padmini is still fighting for survival, but barely.

The Ambassador was an older model which was launched in the late 1950s and became the favourite of politicians and bureaucrats. It was also an integral part of Kolkata’s cab fleet where the yellow Ambys are still around in far greater numbers than the Padmini in Mumbai.

As in the case of Premier, Hindustan Motors was finding it difficult to keep the Ambassador going especially when there were hardly any takers for the car. Even the netas and babus had opted for fancier offerings and it was clear that the model was reaching a dead end. In May 2014, Hindustan Motors shut down its Uttarpara plant in West Bengal.

It now remains to be seen when the last Padmini will bow out of Mumbai’s taxi fleet and how many years thereafter the Amby will follow suit. Today’s young customers would much rather opt for an Ola or Uber which have more contemporary models to offer. Also, with vehicular emissions becoming a hot topic, the exit of these two iconic brands is only inevitable.

HM recently sold the Ambassador brand to France’s PSA Group which makes the Peugeot and Citroen range of cars. It will be interesting to see if the French automaker will revive the brand once it begins producing cars from its plant near Chennai by the end of this decade.

Both Premier Automobiles and Hindustan Motors set up their operations in the 1940s around the time India was getting set to liberate itself from British rule. They ruled the market for many decades till competition first came in the form of Maruti Udyog in the 1980s followed by economic liberalisation a decade later.

Premier entered into alliances with Peugeot and Fiat in this new environment while HM joined hands with GM and Mitsubishi. Meanwhile, the Padmini and Ambassador were still being produced though it was more than evident that their time was running out. The fact that they are still around is a tribute to the never-say-die spirit of their cabbie owners but clearly they are on their last lap now.

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