This Vintage ABU Garcia Ambassadeur model 5000, serial number 166387, bait casting reel with free spool and star drag 2 1/2” sideplate diameter with double handle crank will be for some anglers a once in a lifetime opportunity to own one of the most sought after fishing reels in the world. This reel might be second hand but it has been taken great care of and looks hardly used. The casting reel may be an american original, but the grand old game amid the lily pads and bay shores was changed forever in the years after World War II with the introduction of a single foreign product... the so-called "red reel."
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The red abu ambassadeur 5000, imported from Sv¿¿ngsta, Sweden, by AB Urfabriken, debuted in the United States at the 1954 New York World's Fair (ABU's European precursor to the Ambassadeur was the Record series). The import, distributed as the Abu Garcia Ambassadeur 5000, incorporated a push-button free-spool design that disengaged the spool from the handle. It boasted a patented centrifugal brake to control the windmilling spool during the cast and an anti-reverse mechanism to eliminate backspinning during the retrieve. An adjustable star drag regulated the tension on the outgoing line against the locked handle.
And, unlike the sputtering freewheelers, the Ambassadeur 5000 with its plastic spool and centrifugal brake was the first casting reel that could handle the introduction of springy monofilament line. This was huge! During the late 1950s, mono pointed straight (even while stretching) to the future. Braided line was immediately relegated to something your grandfather toted in his battered wooden box.
No small point, the Ambassadeur 5000 looked cool. Elvis Presley had his blue suede shoes and Abu Garcia had its red anodized frame. The Ambassadeur was faithful to the "round reel" appeal of the old Kentucky watchmakers, but it was a rock 'n' roll machine with solid heft (the early models with chrome-plated brass frames weighed approximately 11 ounces; the later ones with aluminum frames, approximately 9 ounces, on a par with the larger direct-drive casting reels such as the Shakespeare President and the Pflueger Supreme).
It is a safe bet that the established reel manufacturers were in shock. Wouldn't you be if you were trying to sell biplanes in the dawn of the jet age? The 18-year patent on the centrifugal brake prevented imitations, and the only thing that kept the Marhoffs, Sportcasts, and Nobbys moving at all was the brutal price tag on the import. The red reel retailed at approximately $45, a staggering sum during the Eisenhower administration. A few direct-drive reels came close, but many accepted models were less than $15 or $20.
Despite its high price, the red reel took off because it proved itself with reliable performance in the red-hot Texas saltwater arena. The Ambassadeur was like a good jungle assault weapon. It had loose tolerances and simple parts, and with a screwdriver and a can of oil, you could keep it firing. The drag might get sticky and the free-spool button might catch, but the machine would continue to function.
The Ambassadeur reel fished bays and surf, lakes and ponds and was even carried on an aircraft carrier to war in 1969. The old "four screw" reel was rough and crusty and the 3.75:1 retrieve ratio seemed dated, even quaint, in today's fast lane-but it works. You could spool it with fresh 12-pound mono and fish it tomorrow.
The peak year for the red reel was 1967, when 490,000 units were produced.
The Ambassadeur Series saw numerous models and upgrades, and the old 5000 faces the new century under different marketing wraps. The current reels, under the corporate mantle of Pure Fishing, benefit from more than two dozen modifications to the original and enjoy a large following. The reels are also considerably more affordable than the original. (The "new" red classic retails through Cabela's for approximately $80. Other tweaks on the same design cost less than $60. In contrast, top-end casting reels by Abu Garcia, Shimano, and Daiwa are in the $200 to $300 class.)
The Abu Garcia Ambassadeur 5000 has had the longest production run of any levelwinder, past or present, and according to the factory in Sweden, approximately 4 million red reels of the 5000 design have been made. More important, the reel changed the past and spawned the future. It is no exaggeration to say that every casting reel on today's shelves has borrowed from the original red reel.
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