[Geo_Ipe]

Allow me to introduce AMBROCKZ - A group of Ambassador lovers from Kottayam. This was started by a handful of Ambassador lovers when they met on Facebook (on a public Ambassador forum). Once they realised that they were from the same locality, they decided to meet for coffee. Gradually, the group grew in number and mainly kept in touch over a WhatsApp group. From early 2018 till now, the number grew to more than 100! There are people from all walks of life in the group and the only criterion to be a part of the group is - owning & adoring an Ambassador.

The group started being noticed in June 2019, when Ambrockz decided to have an Ambassador car rally through Kottayam town. The sight of 30+ exquisitely maintained Ambassador cars driving through town was a sight to behold. Everyone has memories of an Ambassador in one way or another. The rally sent everyone who witnessed it a few decades back in memory lane! The event got a fair bit of local media coverage as well.





Look at this YouTube video - Enjoy the convoy of Ambassadors riding through town!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8qrz5mGpsk

SAVE KERALA - 2019 Kerala Floods

Ambrockz brotherhood came together when Kerala most needed help - during the horrible 2019 floods. A fund was raised with contributions from the members, getting basic household stuff for flood affected families in the Kuttanad region of Kottayam. Being Onam season, this was a blessing for many families who were struggling to get back to their feet after the floods damaged many houses and other stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNin6jYsWbA

In August 2019, Ambrockz members met at Nagampadom stadium in the heart of Kottayam, with a very unique message. The message was - "SAVE KERALA". The was they put the message across using their Ambassador cars was nothing short of spectacular.





YouTube video of the event & much more (In Malayalam though):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPx2DJchAig&t=178s

The Ambassador Documentary

What prompted me to write about Ambrockz on Team BHP is their latest documentary video. The entire video was individually shot by members on their phone cameras and edited by a member. For an amateur attempt, it has come out really well. It indeed is a visual treat for anyone who is nostalgic about the Ambassador!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCzClV55jQU&t=29s

Now signing off by showing off a few immaculately maintained Ambrockz cars!

































Last, but not the least - My very own 1979 Mark 4!

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to Shifting Gears. Thanks for sharing!

Here is another sexy thread - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/post-...e-gallery.html (Landmaster And Ambassador Picture Gallery)

[McLaren Roxx]

Lovely

It's always a treat to see such a beautifully maintained icon, from an era that that truly kick-started the 'Indian Car Scene' back in the 1980's.

Part of the quartet - HM Ambassador, Premier Padmini, MS 800 & HM Contessa; seeing any of these cars on the road today brings back sweet memories. A ride in one was always special and if it were possible today, I'd still hop in an Amby or Fiat over a modern day 'taxi'.

A special mention about those cool abc1234 type registration numbers.

[Brumby]

This thread made me feel good and bad at the same time.

Good because the Amby looks really handsome. I love the car and hope to own one some day.

Bad because I curse myself for not buying one due to distraction by the newer generation cars for all their gimmicky gadgets. Really bad because I was out of country when it was announced that the production will be stopped. How I wish that Hindustan Motors revives the brand & starts selling this iconic car once again

Thank you for posting the amazing pictures and videos.

Cheers

[Kosfactor]

I hated this vehicle back in the days when I was just a passenger in it. I hated it even more when I had to drive it a few times - and then adulthood happened. Now I would have one of them Mark IIs with White wall tires, hella lights, roots horns - yeah that will do.

I see more of them in good condition in Kerala than anywhere else so far.

Happened to see an Amby recently, near my home in Bangalore a few days ago. We may get to meet the owner in here, feel free to say Hi.

[Sk8r]

Have some great memories with this car. My dad bought this in 1987 from kanyakumari ( 3rd Hand ) and drove it all the way to Visakhapatnam.

I don't remember vividly but probably Washing this car, watching my dad using High beam - low beam with his left foot, changing gear that was hooked to steering, yellow color fog lamps is all that I remember as a 10 year old

And this was good enough to hook me into automobiles ever after

[Ranjith812]

Wow! This is a visual treat I must say. Really enjoyed seeing many Ambassadors " king of Indian roads".

Kudos to all the organizers.

[GipsyDanger]

With the Amby fast disappearing from our roads, our motoring scene just feels so.... incomplete. Sure, much better built, reliable workhorses have came and went since it's demise, but Amby has become a part of our culture that I feel no car has truly replaced it. Every Indian has spent some part of their lives traveling in one; either private or taxi or both. I can't even imagine a generation that won't have the luxury of enjoying the supremely comfortable rear seats!

The car's glory days faded when Maruti Udyog entered the scene in the '80s, and even more so by the onslaught of other foreign carmakers, but the fact that the grand old lady has managed to thrive for another 3 decades or so is truly astounding.

A wonderful car ruined by it's maker's incompetence and absolute refusal to innovate. It's really a tragedy. Hope PSA can revive the brand before it vanishes forever from Indian minds.

The pictures of those lovingly maintained Landmasters, Mk.IIs, Mk.IIIs and Mk.IVs are truly enthralling! The Amby truly deserves to be celebrated as an icon of Indian motoring. As soon as these turbulent times subside, these beauties really deserve a breath of fresh air!

I really hope we get to see many more such trips with these wonderful machines! These incredible relics of Indian motoring fascinate me as much as those pristine Cadillacs and Plymouths exhibited at Concours d'Elegance!

[sjain2054]

I learnt how to drive on my dad's sarkari Ambassador. 1.8L Isuzu petrol. Wonderful engine and I loved the gear shifts.

I do not know much about this that is why what I am about to say might sound funny but why is it not possible to take only the chassis of old cars like Ambassador, Premier Padmini and out them on an assembly line, fit them with the latest suspension, engine, AC, seating, features like Seltos like ventilated sest, 10 inch screens for Speedometer etc and roll them out for a price like a new car?
Imagine an Ambassador which is nothing but a Honda City with an Ambassador look/chassis or a premier Padmini which is nothing but an Etios with the body of a Padmini (sub 4 meter that too). I would pay money to get me one of those. Best of both worlds.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Wonderful to see all these Ambassador cars together.

Growing up in Kerala - these cars were very common until the Maruti cars started dominating the roads in the late '90s. Never thought much about the Ambassador - except for its phenomenal comfort and space - carrying a whole bunch of us relatives for our first road trip to Munnar.

Now I have a soft corner for the Ambassador and think it looks beautiful! Kudos to you and the others for maintaining this beauty in top-notch condition.

[sandeepmohan]

KRB2858 was the model that was most common in South India.

I had the opportunity to ride in one of our Central Government allocated cars fitted with a 1.8l Isuzu engine. They extended the life of the petrol Ambassador and improved engine NVH by a huge margin compared to the 1.5l BMC motor. There were more noises from the car than the engine. Driving down some of Delhi's wide and well paved roads, you could barely feel or hear the engine. The car rode really well when loaded too. The Ambassador had the fastest cooling Aircon of any car I have been in to date.

[funkykar]

Wow!!!! Lot of images and videos to digest. Apart from WB, I think Kerala has the highest number of Ambassadors in India. My general observation of Kerala has been they maintain their vehicles top notch and have more enthusiasm than other parts of India.

Appreciate this effort and will look to meet you guys in a future meet. I am from Bangalore by the way!
Some of the Amby's I owned:

[zaheermk]

We/my father had owned two Ambassadors in his course of life, both Mark 4, one White, that he bought second hand, his first car (which he sold after some point of time) and the other/second one, a Navy Blue, that he inherited from my grandfather and which my brother got it repainted to Black. The White one had got refitted a Jaya engine (from the same company that tuned the JTP engine/versions of the Tiago & Tigor) and the Black one came with a more common Matador engine, which was later sold for a 'new' gen Omni.

Even though I have not properly driven those two vehicles (had not attained driving age then), I had cranked/started them many times (heating and starting it for the first time of the day used to take 5-10mins, and was allotted to me usually, for our mutual time management during the busy mornings). I used to like them very much and do even today.

And then I have had friends who had subtly modified their Ambassadors with Koyas captain seats, fitted ACs, done tinted glass, put on fog lamps, got alloy wheels, converted side gear lever to floor gear lever etc.

Those days, it used to be the king of the roads and still remains so in my memories.

I am sharing an elegant rendering of an Ambassador here, that I stumbled upon on the net a few days back, which I have made the wallpaper on my PC.



I liked the above rendering so much, that I had shared this on another thread a few days back, but I think this is the most apt thread for it, which I came across only today.

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

Attachment 2021851

Allow me to introduce AMBROCKZ - A group of Ambassador lovers from Kottayam. This was started by a handful of Ambassador lovers when they met on Facebook (on a public Ambassador forum). Once they realised that they were from the same locality, they decided to meet for coffee. Gradually, the group grew in number and mainly kept in touch over a WhatsApp group. From early 2018 till now, the number grew to more than 100! There are people from all walks of life in the group and the only criterion to be a part of the group is - owning & adoring an Ambassador.

It's a very good step in the right direction to start this thread for Ambassador lovers. The car now extinct is getting more and more likes by the young and old alike, as it becomes scarce, is fast dwindling in numbers and gets rarely sighted on our roads.

If we form such Ambassador groups at more and more locations where we have more owners, it will be a positive step to strengthen our resolve to continue our ownership, develop a greater bonding and discuss common likes, problems as far as spares, repairs and maintenance are concerned.

Kerala is where the love for the Ambassador is at its peak in India, followed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh/ Telangana and lastly West Bengal. Very, very sadly I must confess that West Bengal and in particular Calcutta was the Ambassador capital of India till the early 1990's but it is no longer so today. The changeover here happened too rapidly, with thousands of Ambassadors dissappearing from the roads progressively, on a continuous basis. They were quickly replaced by other makes. Today, if one sees a huge parking lot or sights a long traffic jam in Kolkata, in a motley crowd of about 100 cars, only two to three privately owned Ambassadors will be visible. The Ambassador taxis have been survivors over the years and the Ambassador's numbers and strength on Kolkata's streets is almost, only on the basis of these yellow taxis. The newest though as a BS IV Encore, is already six years old and has a life of 14 more years to go before it becomes history. So it's a matter of time and by 2034 all Ambassador taxis from the Kolkata roads will be gone and become a part of the history. I always board Ambassador taxis and not Swift Tours, while in Kolkata. If you engage in talks with the driver, 100 % of them express their loyalty to the brand and vow to run them till the end of it's life cycle. They speak very highly about their car, it's servicability, it's ruggedness, it's reliability, it's economic ownership and how it has been a "Lakshmi" for them that has helped them light their kitchen fire over the past decades.

At the other end of the spectrum, very few old privately owned Ambassadors are left on the roads. Most of the older ones have had engine and/or body transplants. The number plate has remained, which makes us distinguish it as an old car. Very, very few original, privately owned Ambassadors are left in Kolkata as of now. That is a sad story of a car that sold 95 units out for every 100 cars sold in the metro from the early 1960's till the 1970's and 1980's. I guess it's ownership fatigue over the decades and the buyer's clamour for more modern brands. Earlier, even Fiats and Premiers were considered unfit for the torturous roads of Kolkata. Fiats and Premiers never sold well in Kolkata and I can say stories about relatives and friends who felt scared, seated in these smaller cars, feeling insecure. Whereas, starting with the more "Fragile" Maruti 800 and later models, nearly all of them have been selling very well. That's very ironical !

Hence in this backdrop, our friends from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh/ Telangana are way ahead and are doing a commendable job by maintaining old Ambassadors in running condition and even today some are spending Rs 10-12 lakhs to restore them with "state of the art" spares and accessories, to give their cars the Rockstar looks.

[kar_thikr]

For many, the Ambassador will be the 1st car that we have ever been in, for me it was a 1989 Mark 4 in the form of a taxi. I can still remember the smell inside that car, I also remember the household light switches mounted on the B pillar for the interior lights. it's nice to see many of these car granddads still going strong and kept in nice shape as well.