Facel Vega Facellia Price Guide

The Facel Vega Facellia of 1960 to 1963 was Jean Daninos’s attempt to build a smaller, more affordable Facel using a purpose-designed French engine rather than a Chrysler V8. It was ambitious and, eventually, it destroyed the company.

The 1,647cc Pont-à-Mousson twin-cam four-cylinder suffered catastrophic reliability problems that resulted in warranty claims, customer defections, and ultimately the bankruptcy of one of France’s finest post-war manufacturers. The Facellia’s mechanical failure is one of the great tragedies of automotive history.

The Car

The Facellia used a purpose-designed 1,647cc twin-cam four-cylinder by Pont-à-Mousson producing 115bhp. It is an engine that proved inadequate in both power and reliability. Head gasket failures, bearing failures, and overheating were endemic.

The body was a smaller, lighter version of the Facel grand touring formula, available as a coupe and cabriolet. Around 1,100 Facellias were produced before the engine problems and the company’s resulting financial crisis ended production. Later cars received the more reliable Volvo B18 engine as a replacement, creating the Facel III.

Buying

A Facellia with the original Pont-à-Mousson engine requires extreme mechanical caution; the engine’s failure modes are well-documented but not fully resolved. Cars retrofitted with the Volvo engine (as the Facel III) are more practical. The Facellia is historically significant as the car that killed Facel Vega and robbed motorists of so much potential.