Forgotten movie cars: The Mercedes-Benz SL from "Columbo"
11/29/2021
Lieutenant Columbo and his Peugeot 403 are inextricably linked. But the murderer is almost as likely to be driving a Mercedes-Benz SL from the 107 series, because one of the Stuttgart sports cars rolls through the frame in every other episode – at least in memory. If you want to know exactly and go through episode by episode, you realize that the criminal only drives a 107 SL in a modest four episodes.
In "Playback" (1975), Oskar Werner drives a maple yellow 450 SL with wire wheels of highly questionable taste. One episode later, George Hamilton also sits in a 450 in "A deadly state of mind", albeit in dark blue 904 and with the original tin hubcaps. In "Make me a perfect murder" (1978), Trish van Devere even receives her astral silver 450 SL with red leather as a gift from the later victim. Helen Shaver drives the only facelifted 107 in the 1990 episode "Rest in peace, Mrs. Columbo": a signal red 560 SL with saffron-colored upholstery.
After all, the later victim sits just as often in a super-light Benz, sometimes even in the same one as the murderers an episode earlier, as the production company couldn't buy a new car every four weeks. Here, of course, the SL appearance is a lot shorter, as the driver is no longer able to drive later in the movie for well-known reasons. Why does the 107 quota still feel much higher in the memory? Perhaps because the Stuttgart star brand is also well represented elsewhere with two W108s, two tailfin convertibles, a Pagoda SL, a 190 SL, an SEC and even an Adenauer, but the eternal 107 was by far the most common of them all.
Of course, they also keep up with the times in Los Angeles: in 1991, Dabney Coleman switched to an R129 in "Columbo and the murder of a rock star", as did William Shatner two years later in "Butterfly in shades of grey". And, of course, the last car of a murderer was also an SL: in "Columbo likes the nightlife" from 2003, Matthey Rhys drives a brand new SL 55 AMG from the R230 series. This makes Columbo probably the only series to feature five generations of one type of car. Nevertheless, everyone only remembers the Peugeot.
