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MAN AND MACHINE
The first trimester Amby
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Ramji Srinivasan has one of the `links' between the Morris Oxford MO and the Ambassador — a 1949 straight-four Hindustan 14
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BABY AMBY The Hindustan 14 was actually the Ambassador in the making
The Amby has proved itself versatile. During its fifty years (that is, if you count the very short period when the Hindustan Ambassador was made on Indian soil, but as the Landmaster), the car has managed to play two conflicting roles — as the penny-pinching taxi and the ostentatious, official vehicle of the Indian bureaucrat.
The car has blended so well into the Indian landscape, and it was only apt that documentary photographer Raghubir Singh presented a `picture' of the country through snaps taken from inside the Amby.
If you factor in the first nine years (from 1948 to 1957) when the Ambassador was in its foetal stage of development (the metaphor actually works, if you substitute a month for every year), the car's history runs alongside that of independent India.
When the side-valve, straight-four, 1476 cc Morris Oxford MO began to occupy the British road space in 1948, the idea of getting the car to use India's commuting stretches was simultaneously conceived and, not being the ones to procrastinate, the Birlas quickly attended to all the contractual requirements and were taking orders for the Hindustan 14, as early as 1949.
The design and technical team, which included the legendary Alec Issigonis, that sculpted the MO from the Morris 10, were obviously not looking to make a replica. This thinking probably led them to "abandon the overhead valve unit in favour of a side valve". The Hindustan 14, cognate as it was with the MO, became the natural recipient of this technical change. Ironically, owners of Hindustan 14 preferred the anachronistic engine assembly (one that characterised the Morris 10) and Ramji Srinivasan, who owns a 1949 Hindustan 14, vouches for the accuracy of this information. When the sales deed was being signed, the car's previous owner informed him about the replacement he had effected under the hood.
Amby owners did not have to contend with the same problems that plagued owners of Hindustan 14, because the all-Indian car was a big improvement on the `British-car-masquerading-as-Indian' Hindustan 14 (where the running mechanism is concerned) and the Landmaster (primarily in terms of design — but, truth be told, the differences do not really stick out, except for the Landmaster's more curvaceous boot, because both derive their structure from a monocoque design) and partly due to the fact that it borrowed a lot from the superior Morris Oxford III (1956 - 1959), which came after Morris merged with the BMC and members of the combine could draw from one another's resources. Oxford III and Amby made use of the undisputedly superior Austin B-series OHV straight-four.
However, Ramji's Hindustan 14 still retains two strong links with the Ambassador — sturdiness and reliability.
PRINCE FREDERICK
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