The Hindustan Ambassador is an automobile manufactured by Hindustan Motors of India from 1957 to 2014, with improvements and changes over its production lifetime. The Ambassador was based on the Morris Oxford series III model, first made by Morris Motors Limited at Cowley, Oxford in the United Kingdom from 1956 to 1959. Despite its British origins, the Ambassador was considered as a definitive Indian car and was fondly called the "King of Indian roads". The automobile was manufactured by Hindustan Motors at its Uttarpara plant near Kolkata, West Bengal. On 11 February 2017, Hindustan Motors executed an agreement with PSA Group for the sale of the Ambassador brand, including the trademarks, for a consideration of . The tie-up entailed two joint-venture agreements between the companies of the two groups. History Design and development The Ambassador was basically the same Morris Oxford Series - III, launched by Morris, then a part of British Motor Corporation. In 1956 it sold the rights and tooling to Hindustan Motors as it had done for its previous Series - I and Series - II models which were sold by Hindustan Motors as Hindustan 14 and Landmaster. The Series -III model itself was a derivative of the Morris Oxford Series - II model which was developed prior to the Austin and Morris merger. The car was quite spacious due to its semi-monocoque design which was quite an advancement in the early 1950s in vehicle engineering. The car was designed by Alec Issigonis whose other designs were the Mini and Morris Minor. The Ambassador replaced the Hindustan Landmaster, which was quite similar, and the larger Hindustan Deluxe. Birla Group Hindustan Motors Limited (HM), part of the Birla group was India's pioneering car manufacturing company and later a flagship company of the C.K. Birla Group. The company was established just before Indian independence, in 1942 by B.M. Birla. They began operations in a small assembly plant in Port Okha near Gujarat by assembling the then Morris 10 as the Hindustan 10. In the mid-1950s, they planned to upgrade their then existing Hindustan models based on the Morris Oxford Series Il (Hindustan Landmaster), they eventually acquired rights for the new Morris Oxford Series III. The car initially came with a side-valve engine but was later improved to an overhead-valve engine. Also the car at that point was quite an innovation with a fully enclosed monocoque chassis, which is why