posted by Bruno Ferlito
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: Peugeot 403 Cabriolet – Columbomobile
– Posted on July 5, 2020
posted by Bruno Ferlito
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I think I saw Columbo smiling upstairs in the sky. 😉
It’s odd that Peugeot didn’t continue making the retractable hardtop that they invented first. The proportions of this soft-top were correct for the retractable, and it would have looked better.
Retractable hardtops are expensive to tool, impractical to package, and heavy to use unless they’re powered. Execution is further complicated by the expectation that a vehicle with a hard folding top will be as quiet and weatherproof as a solid roof.
From a style perspective, a soft folding top shouts “I’m a special car and my owner is a special person!” in a way that an invisibly integrated folding hardtop doesn’t. A quiet, weatherproof folding hardtop probably is worth a premium over a soft top for practicality and comfort, but not for style and prestige.
Interesting coincidence. I was just uploading some photos to the cohort while watching a DVD of a Columbo episode. When the photos finished uploading, I came here, and this is what I see. CC effect squared or something like that.
while watching a DVD of a Columbo episode.
There was one ep where I really sympathized with the perp “Death of a Rock Star”. Dabney Coleman suspects his live in g/f is cheating, hires a PI who provides logs and pix to confirm his suspicions. Coleman gives her a chance to walk away. Nope. Greedy ho says she is going to keep on living off his money, and his is going to tolerate it because she is going to blackmail him.
That is quite a find!
Lovely car!
I am no aficionado regarding Columbo, but I do recall that when he claimed to own a foreign convertible, looks of interest became looks of disdain upon spying his shabby 403, and I thought that the wry little joke was from some writer who knew the basic package was one of the most roadable sedans of its time. It is, surely, the dishevelled yet smart detective himself, transmogrified into metal and rubber.
For my eyes, however the crooks – as generally it was they who were disappointed by the wheels – had a point. The 403 is not an ugly machine, but does not inspire superlatives, and the somewhat awkward convertible tones even that level of muted appreciation down a notch. Doors of appropriate length would have helped.
It looks much improved – meaning, of course, closer to the pleasant-enough ordinariness of the saloon – when the top is down, which is the whole point of a topless car anyway, I suppose. But so is a touch of glamour, which rather eludes this sturdy French yeoperson.
From the beltline down it looks like a Silver Shadow.
My first car was a 403 sedan, bought because it was cheap-I was 17 and knew little about cars. But it turned out to be a great car that was also quite unique, although not as unique as the cabriolet.
I caught an ep of Columbo where the writers dropped the ball on continuity.
In one of the eps of the 80s or 90s, Columbo says he had never had the top down, until he dropped it in that ep.
Wrong.
In one of the 70s eps, he takes his prime suspect to lunch: burgers at a drive-in. While they are eating in the drive-in, the top is down.
The dilapidated condition of that Pug became something of a running gag in the series, a gag that didn’t really play that well, imho.