2023-07-15 04:06:00
Columbo is an American detective television series created by Richard Levinson and William Link and first broadcast on February 20, 1968 on the American network NBC.
The series will be broadcast until 2003 in the United States. In France, viewers discovered the series on December 20, 1972 on the first ORTF channel.
It was a huge success and it is not uncommon for it to still be broadcast today on TNT channels.
Jean-Marc Barthélémy’s Peugeot 403 cabriolet is a replica of Inspector Columbo’s famous car. Photo East Republican Xavier Gorau
A simple and effective recipe
It all starts with the book “The Little Doctor” by Georges Simenon which brings together a series of twelve short stories with one thing in common: we know the assassin from the start of the story. American producers have been trying for years to buy the rights to the book to make it into a series, without success.
Finally, the writers will take up the idea of the absence of police suspense to create the quirky policeman character of Columbo.
The man, a bit simple-looking, badly dressed, messy, poorly organized, always followed by the cloud of smoke from his cigar, accompanied by his dog, and never using his service weapon, in no way resembles a Los Angeles policeman. He will turn out to be shrewd, intelligent and obstinate. It is still necessary to find him a vehicle at his height.
Photo East Republican Alexandre Marchi
Photo Hubert Lachat/East Republican
A car gathering dust
A few days before the filming of the episode “The witness book” which will be broadcast in 1971, the production still has to find the lieutenant’s car.
Peter Falk himself goes to Universal’s garages, a huge hangar where movie cars are stored. After having surveyed the paths of the garage up and down, and as he is about to return empty-handed, he stops in front of a faded Peugeot 403 cabriolet, it is love at first sight.
Peter Falk is unaware of all this model which is only distributed drop by drop in the United States and only in sedan version, but he knows it, it will fit perfectly with his character.
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Roger Pierre’s car
Peter Falk will explain later: “There were only Fords, Chevrolets or Buicks, which all looked alike. I didn’t know this car, I didn’t even know it was French”.
But how on earth could this Peugeot 403 have ended up in Los Angeles in the Universal hangar?
A few years earlier, the French actor Roger Pierre, on a trip to the United States, exchanged his personal Peugeot 403 cabriolet for a Cadillac. This is how his old Peugeot will end up gathering dust in this shed.
Peugeot does not want to hear about it
The 403 convertible makes its first appearance on American screens. As always in this kind of case, the producers of the series will ask the manufacturer to provide other identical vehicles to prevent any immobilization in the event of breakdown, accident or filming in different places.
But the Americans then come up against an end of inadmissibility on the part of Peugeot. After seeing the lieutenant at the wheel of a dilapidated 403, Peugeot leaders fear tarnishing the image of the Lion brand across the Atlantic, in a country where sales stubbornly refuse to take off.
Peugeot will end up paying homage to Columbo’s 403. Peugeot picture
Several 403s for Columbus
Finally, three or four 403 convertibles will be bought by the production and used on the set. If the first 403 is a real convertible, the following cars will be modified sedans. Impossible indeed to find convertibles in the United States.
On the screen, we can notice the registration of the vehicle which changes, from 044 APD during the first episodes to 48 DBZ thereafter. This does not prevent the car from becoming a character in its own right in the Columbo saga.
An icon
From the first episodes, the rickety 403 takes an important place and serves as a comic spring for the adventures of the lieutenant. In the episode “Requiem for a Fallen Star”, Columbo gets checked by police.
When they point out to him that he might consider changing cars, Columbo explains that he does not want to change. He replies that he already has another one, but that his wife is driving it.
A second car that we will never see, Columbo’s wife being “invisible” throughout the series.
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Revenge of the 403
Columbo’s 403 will then experience a glorious destiny. On the announcement of the death of Peter Falk, the actor who played Columbo, Peugeot pays tribute to him in an advertisement.
This one, written in the form of a classified ad: “Sell Peugeot 403, 650,000 km, great sentimental value”.
Recently, one of the original 403s that ran in the series ended up up for sale. Estimate: €350,000. Not bad for a car that was abandoned decades ago in a Universal Studios shed.
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