A Look at the Facel Vega

Slowly, the “grandes routieres” of the past, Bugatti, Delahaye, Delage, Talbot, faded away, taxed to death, you might say.
Today, the French look back on that period, from 1945 to 1975, as “les trentes glorieuses,” 30 glorious years, because of course they did ultimately rebuild their economy and their country.

And one of the most glorious things during that period was the emergence of “the last French star,” the Facel Vega. Like most great cars, it was the creation of one man, Jean Daninos. Daninos started his automotive career in 1928, at Citroen. He founded his own company in 1939, Forges et Ateliers de Constructions d’Eure et Loire, (Facel for short; the French love acronyms). After the war, he built car bodies for other manufacturers (Panhard, Simca, and Ford of France), including the French Ford Comete, which was the precursor of the Vega.

His brother was the author of a best selling book (“The Notebooks of Major Thomson”) and it was he who suggested the name Vega, the brightest star. The first Facel Vega was shown at the 1954 Paris show, with a DeSoto hemi motor and a Pont-a-Mousson 4 speed box. The car was expensive, but still very competitive with its rivals. In 1960, it was priced at 39,500FF, compared to the Aston Martin (64,000), the Maserati 3500 (63,000), and the BMW 503 (55,000). Total production for the FV and HK 500 was 849, plus 11 convertibles.

The Facel Vega was designed as a high speed touring car, for cruising the Routes Nationales, the French highways that linked the big cities of France before the Autoroutes, and for that purpose it was unmatched. But purists always suggested that just because it didn’t have an independent rear suspension, or a DOHC motor, it was somehow below its more expensive competitors in stature. This reasoning is fallacious. Instead of comparing the Facel to the Italian GT’s, it would make more sense to compare it to the Bristol, the Jensen, and even the Bentley Continental, which in fact Jean Daninos tried to emulate, in my opinion. Yes, the motor was a pushrod OHV, but what a motor!: the most magnificent American motor of the postwar period, the Chrysler Hemi (and its Dodge and DeSoto derivatives). And yes, it would be nice to find one with the original manual gearbox, but the wealthy people who bought these cars new usually opted for the Torqueflite, arguably the finest automatic transmission of the period as well. As Chrysler collectors know, the last year for the Hemi was 1958; it was simply too expensive to manufacture, and Chrysler replaced it with the 413, which like the hemi, went into the New Yorkers and Imperials. At that point, the Facel got the 383, another excellent motor.

At that point, Daninos tried to go down market by making a smaller, less expensive version, called the Facellia. Unfortunately, problems with the original dohc motor, manufactured by Pont-a-Mousson, virtually bankrupted the company. Had Daninos not tried this grand experiment, he may have soldiered on until at least the early 1970’s by building updated versions of the Facel II, but this was not to be.

Another criticism of the car at the time was that it was heavy, but that missed the point entirely; it was designed as a “grande routiere,” not a GT car. The Vega (and its predecessor, the FV models) was made from 1955 through 1961, when it was replaced by an updated model, the Facel II, another extremely elegant car, of which 184 were made.

Daninos died in 2001 at age 94. At the 2000 Retromobile, he was on the club stand, and he kindly autographed a picture of my car, something I will always treasure. Until recently, there was only one book on Facel, “Facel-Vega, Toute L’Histoire,” by Michel G. Renou, EPA, 1994. However, I see that last year Palawan Press unveiled a new book, priced (like their other books) at almost $500. If this does not fit your budget, there are numerous magazine articles on the Facel in the French collector car magazines, such as Retroviseur. Even today, it is really the last of the great “stars” in French manufacture, except for the Citroen SM of course. And finally, here is a fact not generally known: the dashboard of the HK 500, one of the most beautiful anywhere, is not wood; it is painted on metal, and every dash was done by the same one painter for the entire production run!

After being somewhat neglected in the collector car world, at least here in the States, these cars are in great demand now, and are not easy to find. It interesting to see two convertibles at Retromobile in 2008, one on the club stand, fully restored, and the second for sale on a dealer’s stand in original condition, or “dans son jus,” as the French say.

There is an active club, the Amicale Facel-Vega, which remanufactures parts no longer available, publishes a magazine, and maintains a history of the company, including archives, records, and interviews with old employees (see: www.facel-vega.asso.fr). The club maintains an extensive record of every car, including original color, accessories, and where it was sold. Today, the name Facel-Vega belongs exclusively to the club. It was founded in 1975 and today has almost 500 members, including 120 outside France, who own more than 600 cars.