[devarshi84]

Mitsubishi may drive in small car sans Hindustan Motors - The Economic Times

The article says it all. Indian car buyers might be in for a treat pretty soon.

[mTorque]

As an Amby fan, I wish some Auto giant who would be interested in the Dealer network buys HM!
Can Fiat benefit from buying out HM? may be they can revive Amby just like what they did to Fiat 500. Revived Amby with a Fiat's multijet engine will live another couple of decades.

[devarshi84]

The only best possible way to revive amby today is to peg it as the default cab car.

Big space, more comfort, big boot and easy to maintain with availability of spares makes it the perfect cab car nationwide.

[sgiitk]

In many ways I am not unhappy to see the dinosaur on its way out. I will be even happier since the Amby will finally die. I am sure enough museums in the world will find a place for this relic of the quota permit raj of the mai baap sarkar days.

[KiloAlpha]

Originally Posted by mTorque

As an Amby fan, I wish some Auto giant who would be interested in the Dealer network buys HM!

You must be kidding right? I don't know about other cities, but here is a photo of the HM main dealer in Bangalore ...

[ssdubai]

Charles Darwin and his theory of Natural Selection befits the HM Story.
Survival of the Fittest.
HM has itself to blame for this ordeal.
It has committed a Corporate Harakiri and severely wounded the Mitsubishi brand too.
From the days of the long waiting period for an Ambassador to the empty showrooms of today , HM will go down in history as the Organisation that Resisted Change (in the Market ), Failed to listen (to the Customers Voice ) and an ultimate case of loosing out on the Competitive Edge that it had in the Indian Market.
It should have at least picked up a leaf from the books of the Iran Kodro and the Post Paykan days.
Iran Khodro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Indian Road without the iconic Ambassador . What a Nightmare ?

[samarjitdhar]

A quick update on the piquant HM situation. Here are the details I had been quoting about why the sales of Ambys dived since April last year Hindustan Motors to cash in on 6-month breather - The Times of India.

Sale of Ambassador taxis had been suspended since April 1, 2011, a year after BS IV norms were rolled out in 11 Indian cities, including Kolkata. Though the government had allowed HM to sell its BS III Ambys to replace old cabs for 12 months after the deadline, it was suspended thereafter. But on Saturday, the government extended the deadline for BS III phaseout by six months.

However the WB government issued their own notification to extend the sales by another 12 months back then. Seems recently they brought out another notification to extend it for another 6 months though that is up for challenge in the high court now. I simply cannot fathom how even after 2 years HM could not come up with a 1.5L BS4 compliant engine. Also what business does any government have intervening on behalf of a specific auto manufacturer . Why this undue favor for a company which is almost a case for BIFR? If the court strikes down the state government notification it might be all over soon for HM. Even if HM comes with a BS4 compliant 1.5L version they say it would be more expensive and hopefully then the Tata Indigo CS will look attractive to the cab guys here. Till then we have to suffer the totally un-ergonomically designed seats of the Amby cabs.

Incidentally I think a year back Tata had offered to sell the Indigos for use as taxis but because of the love-hate relationship this government has with the Tatas the transport department refused to allow registration of Tata Indigos as cabs here. Looks like the HM employees can have their free lunch for some more time now.

[shadows123]

Hope Mitsubishi will come out of this stronger and we will see good product range of cars with good marketing from the sleeping giant of Japanese automakers!!Wonder what Mitsubishi was smoking all these years with inactivity on both their and HM's part which has hurt their sales big time.

[rajeev k]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

I simply cannot fathom how even after 2 years HM could not come up with a 1.5L BS4 compliant engine. Also what business does any government have intervening on behalf of a specific auto manufacturer.

Originally Posted by mTorque

Revived Amby with a Fiat's multijet engine will live another couple of decades.

Yes the multijet may be able to bring some fortune and a refurbished Amby and can be the Taxis of tomorrow.

[vivriti]

When the Maruti 800 came out, people predicted its failure citing lack of durability, poor safety (Amby was 'strong' you see), high maintenance cost and generally unsuited for Indian conditions. Apparently bad roads and poor climatic conditions were supposed to be an Indian monopoly.

Even after all these 30 years, people still find a Maruti 800 a desirable car while the Amby has faded off.

HM should have learnt a lesson and spent all these 30 years designing a small car for India which they did not. They assumed sales will be coming from fleet sales and Government contracts and they have lost the plot here too.

HM should have selected a smaller car suited to the Indian market instead of the Contessa. They not only did not target the emerging middle class customer but also assumed wrongly that sales can only be driven by government/fleet contracts, instead of effective marketing.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by shadows123

Hope Mitsubishi will come out of this stronger and we will see good product range of cars with good marketing from the sleeping giant of Japanese automakers!!Wonder what Mitsubishi was smoking all these years with inactivity on both their and HM's part which has hurt their sales big time.

Mitsubishi even worldwide doesn't seem to be keen or aggressive in their automobile business. Its such a huge business conglomerate with steady revenue from its heavy engineering arms, its automobile business seems to receive a lot of step motherly treatment. This given the fact that they have decent cars and SUVs. Back in 2001 I was doing an implementation for them in the US and they were riding a wave of sales back then using a 0-0-0 offer (0 finance, 0 interest, 0 monthly payments for first year) but most of the buyers turned out to be bankrupt and sales nosedived after that. Here are some numbers here Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com. Mitsubishi sells even lesser than Porsche in the US. HM of course is in a class of its own. For the Birlas who lived off the license raaj when they made HM, its not a core business at all and they care to hoots as to what happens to the car as long as they can hold on to the prime land they have.

Originally Posted by rajeev k

Yes the multijet may be able to bring some fortune and a refurbished Amby and can be the Taxis of tomorrow.

Isn't Fiat pushed to the wall with the demand feeding for the Tatas and MSIL? Also re-engineering the Amby to use the MJD is a tough ask which might run into 5 years in itself from concept to production given the way HM works. Then at whatever price (which I think will be much higher) they sell I am sure the cab drivers out here will look for an alternate career.

Originally Posted by vivriti

HM should have learnt a lesson and spent all these 30 years designing a small car for India which they did not. They assumed sales will be coming from fleet sales and Government contracts and they have lost the plot here too.

HM should have selected a smaller car suited to the Indian market instead of the Contessa. They not only did not target the emerging middle class customer but also assumed wrongly that sales can only be driven by government/fleet contracts, instead of effective marketing.

Simply put the HM management and its owners are not qualified to run an automobile business. And now the only thing they are doing is trying to sell vehicles in contravention of central laws around pollution norms. The worst thing is the state government is playing an active role in breaking of those laws .

[iSpoke]

Originally Posted by KiloAlpha

You must be kidding right? I don't know about other cities, but here is a photo of the HM main dealer in Bangalore ...

No offence to Ambi lovers, but this place fits better as a theme cafe rather than a car showroom. really, I mean it.

[sgiitk]

I do not think Mamata can save this dinosaur. If someone was to move a PIL then I know what the courts will do (shoot the WB Govt) and Mamata will do (try to arrest the chap who moves the PIL).

Let the Amby (and HM) die a quick death and all I will say is RIP.

[rajeev k]

Originally Posted by iSpoke

No offence to Ambi lovers, but this place fits better as a theme cafe rather than a car showroom. really, I mean it.

Ambassador cars are sold these days from such cramped dealer's places. After all there is not much to show, so the need is only a room.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I do not think Mamata can save this dinosaur. If someone was to move a PIL then I know what the courts will do (shoot the WB Govt) and Mamata will do (try to arrest the chap who moves the PIL).

Let the Amby (and HM) die a quick death and all I will say is RIP.

Actually the case is already on for years. The blame for this doesn't entirely lie on Mamata. The previous Left government is actually responsible for this mess as they blatantly refused to register any cabs other than the Ambys. The government since the time of the Left regime had been fighting a losing battle (since 2003) when the high court passed an order to phase out all commercial vehicles older than 15 years. The Left government dragged its feet as much as it could till the Supreme Court finally decided against them. Circa 2008 they started the painful process of phasing out these vehicles after the usual violent strikes and dharnas.

As for the Ambys, like any other RTO, the RTOs out here are steeped in corruption for ages. The Amby taxi is synonymous with extra income for various departments including law enforcement as these taxis are very easy to rig. They can rig every part of the Amby taxi to show a faulty meter reading which suits the corrupt babus and cops just fine. I think it would be more difficult to rig the Tata vehicles and it would mean a totally new system eliminating a cushy source of income for these guys. Sorry for going OT here. The next hearing is on Thursday led by the good green samaritan here so hopefully the government will be taken to task and this directive will be stayed for good.