Rare Excellence available

The rarest of the big engined Facels imported into the UK was undoubtedly the Excellence, Jean Daninos’s unsuccessful attempt at a four door, four seater limousine. According to records, just 14 right hand drive cars made it to the UK, and of those 14, five have since gone abroad again, leaving nine. Three of those…

Retromobile 2018

  Retromobile, the fantastically popular classic car show held annually In Paris, took place last week with the usual excellent turnout of Facel Vegas. The Amicale Facel Vega – the French owners club – took pride of place with their stand on which was exhibited the prototype Facellia which became Jean Daninos’s personal transport. As…

Sale update

Now is as good a time as there will ever be to buy a Facel Vega. I did a quick flit around a couple of websites, checked out some upcoming auctions and came up with 34 Facel Vegas for sale around the world – well, Europe or the USA. I’m not going to go through…

HK500 for sale and Lorkin article

On e-bay at the moment is an HK500 for sale from Steve Grey’s Brooklands Motor company. Steve has had a number of HK500s and even prepared one for historic saloon car racing, although I haven’t yet seen this car on the track. The car for sale is a left hand drive machine although there’s not…

Facel press watch

Press watch July 2017 As you may know, I periodically review certain magazines for mentions of Facel Vegas and quite often these mentions are as rare as the cars themselves. Things have been pretty quiet on the Facel front of late, but this month’s Classic and Sports Car has a few mentions which I thought…

Is it really worth £425,000?

Alan Carrington Classic Cars Ltd in Kent, England, has set a new world record of an asking price for a Facel Vega, in this case a Facel 11: £425,000. The car, of course, is fully restored and looks fantastic, but is it worth it? As the owner selling the car, he can ask what he…

Spinners

Last night I watched a Facel wheel-spinner sell for £107 on e-bay. Quite a sum, one supposes but then you’re not likely to see one every day. Or are you? There is another single wheel spinner for sale at £160.50 and a set for £720 on e-bay. But therein lies a quandary which is typical…

Facellia engines

  Writing about the little cars the other day, I was reminded of a piece of paper given to me by our respected historian, Richard Stevens, when I first bought my Facellia back in the 1980s. He had kindly listed all the Facellias imported plus left hand drive cars and their owners, but particularly, their…

The Little Cars

  Not a demeaning term, but these are the smaller- non-Chrysler-engined cars with three different engine specs built between 1960 and the company’s demise in 1965: Facellia, Facel 111 and Facel 6. They maintained the distinctive Facel characteristics such as the three radiator grills in the nose, same headlights as HK500 and then  Facel 11,…

Parts and prices

Some recent correspondence on the French Facel site highlights the problems facing the restorer. It concerns prices for the windscreen washer bottle, a glass receptacle called Lavglace which sits in a black metal framework. The French point out that it was used on several French cars in the fifties. It can be called Bol Vase…