French police decided Tuesday to question the owners of 40,000 Fiat Unos, one of which could be a mystery car that may have brushed Princess Diana's Mercedes before it crashed, police sources said.
A police lab has determined white paint chips found on the Mercedes came from a Fiat Uno, and the vehicles under study correspond to the model the Italian carmaker produced between 1983 and 1987, the police sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity.It will take at least several weeks to question the owners of the cars - and even then police are not sure that they will come up with the right car.
Police spent weeks combing through records of about 112,000 Fiat Unos before they narrowed the number of vehicles they wish to investigate.
The 40,000 Fiat Unos now under investigation are registered throughout France. Police have begun sending letters to the owners in the Paris region, who will be questioned first.
Police sources said the final results of the search could take months, if not years.
If it turns out the vehicle is not among the Fiat Unos, police will then search other Fiat models and then other kinds of cars.
A thick report submitted by the top police lab to investigating judge Herve Stephan last week established that traces of paint found on the Mercedes could only have come from about a dozen different car models. The white paint fragments could be from a Fiat Uno, three other types of Fiat cars or six other kinds of cars, whose make was not specified, the police sources said.