Long ago in the dim and distant past, when red tape and the license raj ruled behind a curtain of misguided socialism, industrial progress was held to ransom. You couldn’t start your own radio station, couldn’t spend your hard-earned money abroad and you certainly couldn’t do something as irresponsible, indulgent and frivolous as introduce a new car. As a result the descendants of the cars you see here became big frogs in their secluded little pond, the mainstay of the Indian car industry.
Most of us distinctly remember a time when all we saw, drove, or sat in were Fiats or Ambassadors. We grew up learning to drive them, went to school or college in them and some of us even rallied and raced them. Yes, even the Amby has done the odd Himalayan Rally. Each of us has our own unique memories of either or both of these cars.
1954 was the year for pioneers. It was the year the world first rocked to the powerful voice of Elvis, the year Boeing cracked the perfect four-engined jet with the 707, the year the Lockheed F104 took the world of military aviation past Mach 2 and the year both the Landmaster and Millecento were launched in India. When it was launched in 1954, the Morris Oxford II or the Hindustan Ambassador as it was called in India was little more than a year old! Not a dowager or hand-me-down, but a relatively rosy-cheeked lass.
Fiat’s revolutionary Millecento, literally 1100 in Italian, was only a year old at the time too. Displayed at the Geneva Show in ’53, this well-proportioned but compact car reflected the growing confidence of post-war Italy.
