1959 Facel Vega HK500

Well, well, well — what do we have here? Why it's one of our Fantasy Garage cars, the Facel Vega HK500! And it can be yours for the Buy It Now price of just $75,000. Or, you can see where the auction takes you. As of right now, just two bids. The car was purchased in Germany, driven around Europe and has been living in the rust-free car utopia that is the SF Bay Area for the past 49 years. You gotta love the people that bought these things — check this out: More »

Facel Vega Facellias in Pasadena Circa 1961

This picture comes to Jalopnik by way of our pal Scott via archivist superstar Charles Phoenix who scanned it out of a copy of the Los Angeles Times from 1961 then gave to Scott who gave it to us and swallowed the spider that ate the fly. What's a Facellia? A watered down Facel Vega. The Facellia is to the HK500 as the 190 SL is to the 300 SL. Smaller. Cheaper. Weaker. Got it? Good. Bigger pic right here.

Commenter of the Day: Existential Crisis Edition

We're sure it will come as a shock to no one that Davey G and I routinely debate Fantasy Garage nominations deep into the early morn. Even less shocking was Mr. Johnson's reaction to the Facel Vega HK500, which I believe he called, "A motherfucker of a car." Then we got to arguing about the various merits and demerits of other French l'automobiles. We were both initially torn between the Citroen SM and the HK500, though I eventually sided with the Facel Vega. Davey meanwhile went a step further and declared the streamlined Voisin C28 Aerosport to be the greatest French car ever. I countered that I'll take the Veyron, thank you. To which Davey replied that the Ferrari 308 is his favorite car, ever. That of course leads us to today's winning Commenter... More »

Facel Vega HK500

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

—Albert Camus More »

Par Excellence! Suicide Facel Vega

Given of today's nomination for the Jalopnik Fantasy Garage, the ridiculously-fab Citroën SM, as well as the exhortations of commenter Teds, we thought we'd go ahead and drop one on the Facel Vega Excellence, which was kind of the Gallic, Hemi-powered version of the Lincoln Continental that inspired the Misfits' "Bullet." Because, well, it was. Ride, Jacque O. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Killing an Author: The Facel Vega, Frankish Hemi-Powered Existentialist Death Machine

Albert Camus, the renowned French author and early inspiration to the Cure's Robert Smith, met his end in one of these fantastic, rare luxury cars. The Facel Vega, unlike the maligned Chevrolet model wearing the same appelation, was a marvelous creation, combining European design with American Hemi power (initially DeSoto, then Chrysler). They're still relatively cheap for such rare cars, and we'd love to see somebody cut one up and drop a blown alcohol Donovan 392 into the engine bay. More »