Iconography on four wheels

Everyone, at least those who were born in and before the 1990s, has a favourite memory of an Ambassador, or as we like to call it, Amby. For me, the car was a symbol of an occasion because my grandmother would hire a white "DLY" taxi when she had to attend weddings and parties. It also meant long trips with the family, copious amounts of luggage secured to the car's roof, and that unmistakable hum of the engine getting louder as the city noises died out. Perhaps the most striking image, especially for those who live in the political capital of Delhi, is the "laal-batti" on a glistening white Ambassador, ferrying bureaucrats and politicians with aplomb, making passers-by peek in curiosity at its privileged and powerful passenger.

For one single car to be a signifier of so many things is what makes the Amby an icon, particularly in an artist's imagination. Subodh Gupta in his Everything is Inside series, pays tribute to the chaos of Indian roads. The striking installation of a black-and-yellow Ambassador taxi, portrayed as half-submerged, is an ode to the taxis found near most Indian airports, with the luggage carrier on its roof.

"For me, the Ambassador is the most iconic car that one can associate with the country. The value in the car is that it has tremendous potential for instant recognition and association among people - one would still stare at a cow on the road as one would at an Ambassador," says Gupta. His art has always had a special place for everyday objects, and "the Ambassador is the most 'everyday' that it can get," he adds.

Designer Manish Arora has also made waves with his modified Amby that aptly showcases his elegant design sensibility. For the television show The Adventures of the Ladies Tailor, which aired on Discovery Travel and Living channel in 2008, Arora engaged artists to hand-paint the car. Arora's Amby has a retro, kitschy quality with a customised emblem that reads 'Life is Beautiful', a Swarovski-studded dashboard, pink and bright blue interiors and neon lights.

Taking the car's kitsch quotient a notch up is design company Happily Unmarried. The company uses icons that are strikingly Indian - autorickshaws, elephants, Punjabi quotes and the Amby - and transforms them into funky merchandise like t-shirts, diaries, mugs and posters. For co-founder Rajat Tuli, the Amby is a huge design influence, much like the Bug (Volkwagen's Beetle) in the West. "The Amby evokes a great sense of nostalgia - most Indians have either owned or travelled in it at least once. And if we were to do an A to Z of India, 'A' would definitely stand for the Ambassador," Tuli says, before adding that it's his dream to own an Amby.

The sense of nostalgia appears to be central to the representation of the Amby in popular culture. Nandini Chandra, assistant professor at Delhi University specialising in popular art, says that the appeal of the Amby lies in the fact that "it is a reminder of a time when technology still attended human needs". Going beyond the nostalgic value, she adds, "What makes it special for me is its non-streamlined aesthetics. Apart from countering the idea that cars should be fast, its fat commodiousness provides an everyday functionality, such that an entire village may be happily squeezed inside it."

The Amby has also found favour with photographers attempting to capture a portrait of India. The late Raghubir Singh's coffee-table book shows the cosmic connection of the car with Indian life, including several driver's eye-view of the country's landscape.

Beyond art, the Lodhi Hotel in New Delhi, till about two years ago, used a fleet of silver Ambassadors for ferrying its guests, to give them a taste of authentic Indian hospitality. But with its production suspended, does this mean the end of an era for the Amby and, subsequently, its tryst with art? Gupta doesn't think so. "I don't think the Ambassador will lose its appeal any time soon. It has a special history on Indian roads, which cannot be erased with the shutting down of a factory," he says. "The Ambassador will be missed for sure."