New Delhi, May 2:

India’s iconic Ambassador car — easily the most recognisable vehicle on the country’s potholed roads — was supposed to have been celebrating its 50th birthday this year. But now the party has been spoiled by an industrial row that has shut the lone factory making the pug-nosed car and raised fears the Ambassador could be coming to the end of the road.

“We don’t know when things will return to normal. Of course we hope it’ll be soon,” said Soni Shrivastav, spokeswoman for India’s oldest car maker Hindustan Motors, which produces the Ambassador.

Hindustan Motors, flagship company of Indian industrial house C K Birla Gr-oup, suspended work at the plant in the eastern state of West Bengal on April 11 following union unrest over pay. The dispute has forced festivities to mark the half-centenary of the Ambassador — known in India as the automobile equivalent of a workhorse for its ability to survive the worst road conditions, to be delayed indefinitely.

The Ambassador’s bulky design, based on the 1950s British-built Morris Oxford, is little changed from when it first rolled off the assembly line in 1957, although the engine is now more powerful. “It’s an Indian ic-on,” said Hormuz Sorabjee, editor of leading Automobile magazine, Autocar.