Facel Vega

Talk about French cars in the USA and get ready for five minutes of snickering. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, cars with a French pedigree have a reputation just slightly south of that reserved for French postcards, but while the postcards do deliver their own precise entertainment value, the cars seem to bring their proprietors  little but grief. Peugeot was the last French brand to try to survive in the caldron of the American market, but it was finally drummed out of the country with the same lack of remorse that had followed the death of Citroen’s American adventure and the disastrous tenure of Renault on these shores. Given that proven track record of failure in the low and medium-priced arena,  the thought of a successful French luxury marque will create fits of laughter akin to that accompanying a Jerry Lewis movie playing a theater on the Champs Elysees.

The fact stays, however, that the French have a legacy of  lavish automobiles that dates from before the dawn of the Twentieth Century. Prior to Charles Rolls teaming up with Henry Royce, Panhard et Levassor was widely acknowledged  as the premier luxury car builder in the world. When you add to that legacy the likes of Talbot-Lago,  Delahaye, Delage,  and, of course, Bugatti, there can be little argument that France has a claim to a rich luxury car history, a history that seemed to a screeching halt with World War II.

Glitterati purchased Vega cars

In the 50-plus years since Hitler met his deserved doom, France’s sole claim-to-fame in super-luxury car circles came with the unpopular  name Facel Vega. Unlike the  Delahayes and Talbot-Lagos, the company had no pre-World War II heritage on which to draw sustenance (and  clients.) It had no special claim to automotive excellence, because for all intents and purposes, until it began building super-luxury cars of its own, it was hardly in the automotive business at all. But in a 10-year span,  from 1954 to 1964, Facel Vega built cars that were able to attract customers like Danny Kaye, Ava Gardner,  and even Ringo Starr. Fact is, the great novelist Albert Camus actually passed away  in a Facel Vega crash. Now, you say, there is pedigree!

Before one considers what Camus was doing in a Facel Vega, though, one might  rightfully, ask, “Why did Facel Vega become the noted French luxury marque of the Fifties and Sixties instead of Bugatti,  Hotchkiss, Delahaye, or Talbot-Lago?” After all, prior to Hitler’s invasion of France,  the nation had been the home of what were referred to as grande routiere, very fast, sharp-handling luxury machines with style that made the Germanic offerings from Mercedes-Benz appear, well, positively Germanic. Definitely, the Nazi occupation of France, the dislocation of the European markets and post-war shortages of materiel were partly to blame for the sad fate of so many proud names.  One also could point the finger at the post-war French government, which instituted exorbitant taxes on high-horsepower luxury cars, essentially putting a stake in the heart of its own luxury car manufacturers.

By 1952,  the most prominent French luxury car producers were staggering. Bugatti was barely in business; the Delahaye-Delage combine constructed fewer than 100 cars a year;  Hotchkiss was building just a few antiquated designs; and Talbot-Lago was puttering along at an equally dismal pace. But some can always find optimism in adversity, and such a man was Jean Daninos, the brother of a prominent French writer.

War years endurance

Daninos had discovered aspiration (and commerce) in adversity before. In 1938, he  created  a metal-stamping company called Forges et Ateliers de Construction d’Eure et de Loire (FACEL)  and immediately profited from the rearmament of Europe that accompanied Hitler’s rise to power. During the Nazi occupation of France, Germany had ordered his company to produce  items like wood-gas generators for cars and trucks, and though working for the Nazis was unpleasant, it did guarantee that the FACEL Works would emerge from the war largely unscathed.

After hostilities ended, Facel returned to its aeronautic roots, manufacturing combustion chambers for license-built Rolls-Royce and de Havilland gas turbines. In addition, Daninos decided to diversify his production, and soon the company was also fabricating kitchen cabinets,  scooter chassis,  and office furniture. The company’s diversification kick brought it into the automobile business as a supplier of specialty bodies, including those for Delahaye’s ill-starred Jeep-imitator,  Panhard’s Dyana, and Simca’s 8 Sport two-passenger coupe.

The French-Ford Comete took Facel to the brink of actual automotive production because, unlike the others, the coupe was a Facel design.  In fact, the Comete  was an obvious precursor of the Facel Vega with its wrap-round rear window and the legendary “roly-poly” seats. But the chassis and 2.2-liter V-8 engine never lived up to the promise of the bodywork, and the Comete was finally dropped.

All in all, life as a specialty body builder wasn’t a bad business, but Daninos longed to do a  little more than  just  build car bodies for auto manufacturers. He wanted to build a car of his own, and he saw a chance in the collapse of the French ultra-luxury industry.

Elegant auto’s debut shocks Paris

At the 1954 Paris Auto Show, Daninos impressed  the press and public with a show car he  named the Vega, after the star. Designed by Jacques Brasseur, the show car was understated,  sleek,  and yet brimming with elegance. The headlights and grille  combined the modern with the classic, and the thin-pillared greenhouse had an elegant lightness about it. Brightwork was maintained  to a tasteful minimum, and virtually all the bright pieces on the car were styled from stainless steel, not chromium-plated. Inside, the well-tailored seats felt more like thrones, and the lever-operated controls and  full gauges  showed the company’s aeronautic influences.

While the interior and exterior of the first Facel Vega reeked of European elegance, there was a big hunk of American brute force under the hood. Knowing that building an engine from scratch was an expensive and a daunting  task, Daninos went shopping and came back with an excellent,  if somewhat surprising choice: the 4.5 liter (276 cubic inch) De Soto Firedome V-8. With a compression ratio of 7.5:1, hemispherical combustion chambers and pushrods operating its overhead valves, this reliable piece of American cast iron  provided 180 horsepower at 4,500 rpm, more than enough for grand touring in the Euro(American) tradition.

Backing up this alien machine were two transmissions. Boulevardiers choose the  depenble Chrysler Torqueflite three-speed automatic complete with nifty push-button control. Those of a more hard-charging bent could opt for a Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed all-synchromesh manual transmission in tandem with a Borg and Beck clutch that needed considerable leg strength.

Road feel was above normal

With its big engine and luxury accoutrements, the Facel Vega was no lightweight, but don’t get the impression it lumbered through turns like an American luxoboat. For its day, the Facel Vega had a reasonably  hard frame fashioned of steel tube side-members  connected by both tubes and channel-section cross-pieces. The suspension was nothing  revolutionary with an independent coil-and-wishbone front suspension and longitudinal semi-elliptic springs locating the live axle at the rear, while tubular shocks did the damping. But the suspension was tuned to minimize body roll, and road testers opined that the Vega in fact,  felt quite nimble.

As was the case with many cars of its time, brakes were a weak point. The hydraulically activated drums were prone to disappear gradually, which made driving the car at its 130-mph potential a bit of a thrill ride. Though the coupe had definite presence, the first Facel Vega was moderately compact, with a wheelbase of 103.5 inches and an overall length of just 180 inches.

In 1954, at a price of some $7,000, the first Facel Vega didn’t exactly jump off the showroom floor, but it is said some 46 units  were built in 1954 and 1955. This was encouraging enough to Daninos that he decided to significantly modify the car for 1956. The main change was the shift to the 5.5-liter Chrysler V-8, a direct descendent of the Firedome. Daninos called the new version the FVS, and it continued in production until 1959, when more  alterations  resulted in the HK 500 complete with a 6.3-liter Chrysler hemi under the hood.

About the same time,  the company revealed  a 4-door model called the Excellence on a stretched HK 500 platform. The car was very expensive  at $12,800, aimed at the Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz 300 buyer, and its pillar-less greenhouse gave it a stately appearance.   Sadly, the chassis was not properly stiffened, and its aft-hinged “suicide” rear doors had a disturbing habit of swinging open as the car rounded corners. Some 152 of these odd characters were built between 1959-62.

Company distresses from new engine

The beginning of the end came for Facel Vega in 1960 with the launch of a 2-seat coupe called the Facellia. In a fit of nationalism or  hubris  or both, Daninos turned his back on the reliable and successful American engines that had made his previous cars viable and, instead, decided to use a designed-from-scratch French engine. The 1.6-liter powerplant, designed by Carlo Marchetti, previously of Talbot, and Paul Cavalier of Pont-a-Mousson, was a tragic failure, sending the company hurtling toward bankruptcy. Even the eventual replacement  of the Volvo P1800 powerplant could not revive the fortunes of the Facellia. Though envisioned as a “volume” car, only 1,500 were actually produced and finding one today with the original Pont-a-Mousson engine is the equivalent of finding a Parisian who likes American tourists.

With the company already on its way to receivership, the sleek, sophisticated Facel Vega II was launched in October 1961. With a heady 390 horsepower streaming from its Chrysler hemi V-8 engine, zero to 60 times were variously stated as 7 to 8.3 seconds. Maximum speed was said to be 140 mph. Even when equipped with a Chrysler Torqueflite automatic that  needed the engine to be de-tuned to simply  355 horsepower, the Facel Vega II was a force to be reckoned with.

But sadly, despite the excellence of the company’s Chrysler-powered cars, the realities of finance and European rivalry were overtaking Facel Vega. In late 1962, the company slipped into receivership, and with Daninos out of the picture,  the company faded still further. In 1964, it finally shuttered its doors forever, leaving us a legacy that included not only its own vehicles but also the European marques that  relied on American horsepower like De Tomaso, Iso Rivolta,  and Jensen.

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