Five Facels for Sale

In spite of the fact that I seem to have been travelling for weeks – actually I have been travelling for weeks – I’ve managed to keep in touch with the World of Facel Vegas and what with one or two private messages and the odd trawl through the internet, I can confidently say that…

Important Facel 11 for sale

Bonhams are offering arguably the most famous Facel 11 in Britain at their December 10 sale at Hendon RAF Museum. Being the former Intercontinental Cars demonstrator and press car, chassis number A114 was seen in and described by every newspaper and motoring magazine that tested it, most notably Autocar and Motor. Indeed, I wanted to…

Presswatch special

It’s not often that there is an entire article about restoring a Facel Vega but this month’s Classic Cars (November, issue 508) has exactly that. To its credit, the magazine publishes seven pages of a project by Hans Ruhe’s Amicale Facel Holland to restore an HK500 including interviews with the principal workers in the project.…

Managing a restoration

Managing a major restoration First of all, an apology for not posting for some time. Since mid-August, I have been to the Belgian Grand Prix, followed a week later by the World Endurance round at the Nurburgring, then the Italian Grand Prix, followed by the Goodwood Revival. Then I flew to Singapore for that GP…

Press Watch

  My monthly trawl through various publications hasn’t revealed much of late – apart from the usual classifieds – but this month’s Classic and Sports Car is of more interest than usual. At first, I thought editorial Facel Vega mentions were going to outweigh the usual ads, but that hasn’t been the case and in…

2 + 2 = ?

Anyone who has owned any Facel Vega will appreciate that the number of seats advertised is incidental to the truth and practicability of those seats. Try and fit a person in the back of a Facellia, for instance, and he or she will have to lie lengthways. It’s virtually the same with a Facel 11;…

Donovan and Facel Vega

Cars in music are everywhere. Perhaps one of the best known is Janis Joplin’s ‘Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all have Porsches, I must make amends Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends So Lord won’t you buy me, a Mercedes Benz?’ Fact is that in…

HK500 discovered

The discovery of a car thought to be lost is always a momentous occasion, and this is the case of the right hand drive HK500 chassis number G8 which has appeared for sale in the States, offered by Hyman Ltd of St Louis, Missouri. The manual car was originally sold in the UK in late…

Facel tragedy

The scene above is the result of a tragic fire in France a couple of weeks ago which has destroyed two right hand drive Facel Vegas and left the owner seriously ill in hospital. It took place around 340 kilometers south of Paris on a very hot day and has left the Facel 11 and …

Update

What with various motor racing commitments and research for the upcoming Le Mans 24 hrs, I seem to have been a little lax in my Facel Vega work, even if I have updated various things recently, including a list of articles that have appeared on e-Bay. But things are rarely completely static on the Facel…