Facel Vega SA, Pont-a-Mousson, France, 1954 - 1964

The origins of the company go back to 1938 when Jean Daninos set up a company to manufacture machine tools for the aircraft industry. After the war they diversified and one of the areas was coachbuilding.

In 1954 Daninos built a striking 4-seat 2-door coupe on a twin tube chassis and called it the "Vega". The engine was a 4,528cc DeSoto Firedome V-8 (Chrysler Hemi) giving 180bhp.

It was mated to the 2-speed Chrysler Torqueflite gearbox with a manual 4-speed Pont-a-Mousson option. The "Vega" was very expensive, but filled the gap in the luxury car market left by the demise of Delage and Talbot-Lago and sales were encouraging enough to warrant continued development. Pont-a-Mousson was an associate company which made gears and components for the truck industry.

By 1956 it had been restyled with a wrap-around windscreen which was fashionable in the United States where they had a strong following. It was called the FVS and continued to be available with the current Chrysler V-8 engine.

From 1958 it was known as the HK500 and by 1960 the Chrysler engine was increased to 6,276cc with 360bhp with two 4-barrel Carter carburettors. From 1960 Dunlop disc brakes were fitted all round as standard. The live rear axle was a British made Salisbury unit. It was an impressive car with twin headlights mounted one above the other and a stainless steel "cheese cutter" grille in the centre and two auxiliary grilles on either side. The interior was reminiscent of a Type 57 Bugatti with the instrument panel set forward just above the feet and a long chrome plated steering column. The huge speedometer and rev. counter had concave glass to avoid reflection. The other controls and switches were all beside the driver in a central, leather covered, console which included switches for the electric window made by Pipers of Acton. There was a huge quick release petrol filler cap, accessed by opening the boot lid.

There were, unfortunately, major defects with the HK500 because it had become much too heavy for the chassis which now had to carry a very heavy steel body and a larger engine.

This meant that the skinny Michelin tyres were seriously over their designed weight limit and had to be changed every 6,000 miles before the steel carcasses broke through the side walls. A potentially more serious problem were the front stub axles which flexed due to the weight and caused the discs on the front brakes to knock the pads far enough back so that after a few miles it took several pumps of the brake pedal before anything happened. In order to counter this problem a valve was installed in the front brake line so that there was always some residual pressure to push the brake pads back onto the discs. This meant the brakes were always slightly on, but coupled with the small section tyres meant that on snow or ice the front wheels would tend to stop rotating and give the steering wheel an alarming kick. The inevitable result was a stub axle failure, sheered off like a carrot and the loss of a front wheel.

There was also a pillarless 4-door saloon called the "Excellence" which suffered all the above faults, but also from a lack of chassis rigidity. It was popular with some Embassies and 152 were made at a price of nearly 4-million francs! There was also a short run of 6 convertibles made in 1955, but they also suffered from serious scuttle shake.

In 1961 the styling was brought up to date, the wrap around windscreen was replaced by one with a gentle curve, the front grille and headlight assembly was less brutal and the roof line became more angular. The Chrysler engine was now up to 6,767cc and gave 390bhp. This model was called the Facel II and production was 180 which was poor compared with over 800 for all the previous models.

It was clear that the demand for such an expensive and not so well engineered car was declining

and so in 1959 Daninos produced the Facellia a scaled down version of the HK500 fitted with a 4-cylinder twin overhead camshaft engine designed by Carlo Marchetti, latterly at Talbot, and manufactured by Pont-a-Mousson. Unfortunately this engine did not live up to expectations, probably due to lack of adequate testing, and suffered from major failures, burnt out pistons and oil leaks, in the hands of customers. These faults were mostly rectified but the loss of confidence was serious. The Volvo P1800 was hastily installed in 1963 and it became the Facel III with similar coupe and convertible coachwork. Production figures for the Facellia ang Facel III were 1,872.

The last offering was the Facel 6 fitted with a linered down Austin-Healey 3000 engine. This engine modification was to keep the car within the French 15CV tax bracket. Only 32 were made.

By the middle of 1964 the company had been in receivership for 18 months, but was declared insolvent in 1965.

In the late 1950s the Facel Vega was a stylish and exotic car and there were many famous owners among them were the Shah of Iran, King Hassan II of Morocco, Stirling Moss and Lionel Bart. As over half the cars were sold in America there were almost certainly famous owners there too. My HK550 had previously been owned by Jackie Oliver's father when I bought it from Mike Harting at HWM, the UK distributors, in 1963. It must be said that HWM gave very good service and carried a good range of spare parts (even front stub axles!).

Facel Club

There is an enthusiastic club for this marque but we lack the address and so will someone forward the information please!

Bibliography:

"Facel Vega: The Star-Crossed Career of a Grand Routier" by Michael Sedgewick,

Automobile Quarterly, Vol. XIV, No.3.