Carsten Bockermann: India's Ambassador

I expect that the seasoned India travelers bemoan the slow reduction of the beloved Ambassador cars on the country's roads. It's manufactured by Hindustan Motors and in production since 1957. It's based on the Morris Oxford III model first made by the Morris Motor Company in the United Kingdom from 1956 to 1959.

I recall my first road trips in India were in a pristine (and many times, in less so) white Ambassador, with its seats covered with white cotton sheets and a wheezing air-conditioning that spewed tepid breeze, if at all. The drivers were frequently dressed in starched white shirts and white trousers. These days, the vehicles that drive me about are Japanese models, bland and bearing weird model names.

No doubt Carsten Bockermann felt the same way, since he now produced an ode to the Ambassador in his Moving India; a slideshow documenting the Ambassador's assembly line at the Hindustan Motors factory at Uttarpara in the state of West Bengal.

Carsten Bockermann is a German photographer who specializes in photographing everyday life in different cultures around the world using a combination of direct reportage and visually interpretative style. His work appeared on The Travel Photographer blog here.