The crown sparks a row about the replica of a mangled Mercedes that carried the late princess

It’s an award-winning show that has been controversial countless times, following the fortunes of the royal family since the 1940s.

Now The Crown is risking a new row after pictures emerged showing a replica of the mangled Mercedes that Princess Diana was carrying – on the set at Elstree Studios.

Diana and Dodi Fayed died in the early hours of August 31, 1997 after the S-Class they were traveling in crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris.

Images obtained by the Daily Mail show a replica of the wreckage with the dented front wheel of a black Mercedes, the bonnet crushed and the dashboard hanging out of the shattered windscreen.

The vehicle is said to have been secretly transported to Paris under a tarpaulin – one of two cars brought there for filming last year.

In October, Netflix crews were spotted in the French capital recreating Diana’s final journey. Other scenes filmed in December show investigators examining the wreck.

While Netflix insisted at the time: “The exact moment of the crash is not shown,” a source told the Mail, “I think a lot of people will find it quite sick that they went into such detail to recreate how the car became.” smashed. I think it will create a lot of excitement in the royal family. If it was any other family, I’m not sure they would.’

Mr Fayed and the driver, Henri Paul, 41, died instantly while Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, was taken to hospital and later died from her injuries. British bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was the sole survivor.

The sixth series will follow the royals from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Netflix declined to comment.

The latest skepticism about the series follows a call to boycott the show from friends of King Charles who claimed it was fabricating a “hurtful” smear against the monarch.

Last autumn the show was criticized for a scene where Charles secretly plotted to oust the Queen when he was Prince of Wales.

Karl was shown Lobbying by the Prime Minister John Major in a bizarre attempt to force his mother’s abdication.

But Sir John told The Mail on Sunday the meeting never took place, calling the scene a “barrel load of malicious nonsense”.

Another well-placed source said: “All dialogue is entirely fabricated.

“All the one-to-one conversations you see on screen are pure fiction and some scenes were created solely for dramatic and commercial purposes, with no regard for the truth. People should boycott it.’

The Crown’s authors suggested that Charles believed his mother, then 65, was repeating Queen Victoria’s mistakes by refusing to step aside for a younger heir.

However, critics point out that in reality Charles was acutely aware that abdication was unthinkable and would debase the institution.

Other sources said the Queen’s death just weeks before the episode’s release made her “particularly hurtful.”

In 2021, politicians and royal pundits backed a Mail on Sunday campaign to urge Netflix to put a disclaimer on The Crown and make it clear that it presents fiction as fact.

It followed growing criticism of the distortion of a number of incidents depicted on the show. The streaming giant quietly added a disclaimer to its marketing for the show last year.