The guys over at Lucky Auctions just let us know about a 1963 Facel Vega Facel II that was recently pulled out of a garage in Hollywood. It may not look it in the photos, but when this car was new it was one of the fastest four-seaters around! The styling was unique, but the mechanicals were fairly common. Power was provided by a Chrysler 383 V8 and shifting was handled by a Torque Flight automatic. Apparently, when fitted with a four-speed, these could easily outrun a Mercedes Gullwing! The combination of exotic good looks and reliable American muscle attracted quite a few celebrities so the company enjoyed some notoriety until it eventually went belly up. This particular example needs some help, but the engine is claimed to have been rebuilt and much of the chrome redone. It will cross the block during Lucky’s Spring Classic auction at the end of month. Keep reading for more photos.
Always the questions—Why go this far and then give up? What problems are behind that?
Yeah, and the answer is simply life gets in the way, health, family status, job status, It seems like such a sad thing .
There was an FV II from here in MN that was a true barn find, having been stored in a barn since the ’70s. Somewhat similar condition but perfectly original and untouched. Went for over $200k at an auction in France. And it was US spec, as this one is.
http://www.carbuzz.com/news/2014/3/21/Barn-Find-1962-Facel-Vega-Fetches-209-509-7719319/
There is something that always appealed to me about the FV big block series. Restored they have an exotic appeal being so rare. I worked at a Dodge dealership that had a maintenance contract on Dodge police interceptors fitted with 383’s. The road test of those beefed up Dodges was memorable.
Pretty cool ~ that whole Euro design / American power relationship usually seemed to turn out lovely results. Given where this was discovered and its propensity for beautiful owners, it makes you wonder if Ava, Rita or Dean ever slid behind the wheel of this one.
This could be somebody’s chance to get a rare Facel at auction that could be a fairly straightforward resto, but unfortunately you don’t know much about it other than the few photos, and none that I could find showed anything of the underside.
Maybe the website has more information, but I am constitutionally unable to stand real bad websites like Lucky’s that are near-impossible to read (dark red and dim barely visible white on black….really??) and which don’t seem to have much information on them anyway. So who knows?
But Mark E is on the right track with his suggestion to sell a French car like this in France. The current Sports Car Market has a story on the recent Artcurial auction in Paris where ultra high prices were paid for certain cars that were in truly awful condition because they were….French!
One example is the $209K paid for the barn find Facel that Mark E linked to. Another is the $160K paid for a barn find Facel Excellence 4-door, and another is the 1949 Talbot Lago that was only partly there and sold for almost $2 million, the first #6 condition car I have seen in any high end auction.
Make sense. The story talked about the idea that the French often see it as necessary to keep or bring important French cars into the country. So, many times they are willing to bid crazy amounts for that reason.
It might be a mistake to bring this Facel from Hollywood to sell it wherever Lucky’s auction is in the US. The upside is that this auction offers someone an opportunity. I could be wrong, but I doubt that the price paid at Lucky’s auction for this Facel will break $209K.
Having lived in SoCal for years, I can say that any old car or motorcycle I bought there only had surface rust if any. Someone call jay Leno.
steering wheel on the left and brake booster on the right. nice to look at but i too think it is going to bring a lot of money. great find
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but those tail light lenses look suspiciously like they’re from a ’63 Impala. :-)
These cars are sooo good looking. I’m diggin’ the shot of Dino standing next to one.
What a great auction! The car went for $175,000 plus buyers fees. I bought 6 cars from them! I’ll post photos when they get here!
That’s my fathers car he had it since I was born. He actually had two of them. One was sold when I was in high school and this was snaked from him. This was a bad situation all the way around. I was actually looking forward to pitting the car back together for him. It was not found in Hollywood it was Fontana.