What kind of car is this?

It was a car that with equal ease, could bucket across a ploughed field with a dozen swarthy farmhands (and animals) on board and not turn a hair, and spill the entire contents of her sump in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan while dropping off a Head of State. Every single one was custom built with its own collection of genetic quirks and eccentricities. We had a string of them: the earliest I remember was a dark blue original, back in the early ’60s, MSW 438, (if I remember rightly), that was by far mechanically most sound. She took us up and down from Madras to Ooty (as they were then) and never even had a flat, let alone breathlessness while tackling the hairpin bends. Her successors were a different breed.

The new, exciting Mark II! that replaced her had a new! exciting! electric fuel pump, which apart from tick-tick-ticking all the time like a bomb about to explode pumped fuel nowhere — and made us abort another motoring holiday — because even the big fancy TVS garage in Madurai (where we were stranded) could not get their heads around the problem. Another old faithful would break her axle so regularly, every three months, that we could predict the week when this was due — and plan trips accordingly. Fan belts went with monotonous regularity and I remember with a shudder, a sizzling May afternoon on Delhi’s Ring Road, when the fan belt shredded — and the brakes went at the same time. You felt as if you were stepping into a cowpat when you pressed the brake pedal — and the car just surged on inexorably, as ahead, the steam rose and hissed from her noble prow. The mechanic’s eyes were like grapefruit when I pulled into the garage and he saw the muck spilling like lava out of the hubcaps and the plume of steam erupting from the bonnet. This same beauty had a trick gearbox — you could only change from second to third if you knew the secret formula, which was like knowing the combination numbers of a safe. No newcomer could grind away in that car in anything other than second gear.

But my mother did something of that kind — she stole an Ambassador — not even realising that she had. The regular car had gone for repairs and a substitute Amby had been provided. After a shopping spree and vague about the colour of the substitute, she unlocked the first Ambassador that appeared familiar and drove halfway across Bombay (as it was then known) to her next stop. But then the stolen car decided that enough was enough and refused to start when she tried a second time. “What kind of car is this?” she fumed before the driver landed up and told her, “But memsahib that is not our car!”

New Ambassadors presented a host of challenges to their drivers. The gears would give you blisters — you needed to karate chop rather than change them — in 10 minutes flat. You had to of course, drop-kick the clutch. The steering — like a ship’s wheel — would give your shoulders and biceps a good workout. One car was delivered with a distinct list to starboard, which the dealer could not see. (They or the manufacturers saw very little indeed.) But yes, that's enough dissing; there were plusses too.

This hulk produced only around 50 bhp, but had enough torque and didn’t fuss if you set off in third gear. Road surfaces were irrelevant, she went over everything. And yes, I could back and park one with a speed and precision I can never manage with these new bulbous beauties.

As for speed? Well, tell me, which car in the world can give you all the thrills and chills of a hysterical Ferrari at terminal velocity, while doing just 80 kmph? The heat, the jarring, the noise, the rattling, the smell of burning oil, the sheer drama — it was all there — who needed a shrieking Ferrari costing crores? And seriously, few cars are so easy to climb into and climb out of than the Amby. After sales service and repairs were provided anywhere and anytime in the country by an army of phantom little boys in flapping shorts who miraculously emerged the moment you put up the bonnet.

And yes, the car had a soul: We were driving home from dinner one night, back in the late ’80s in our last Amby and discussing (softly) the acquisition of one of those newfangled Marutis. The grey lady coasted to a gentle halt, smoke emerging from under the dashboard.

Right outside the Supreme Court premises, she had attempted self-immolation.

Ranjit Lal is an author, naturalist and car enthusiast

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