The automaker Facel (an acronym for Forges et Ateliers de Constructions d’Eure-et-Loir) will come back to life after a fairly long break. The company released its latest model, a Facel 6 sports car, in 1964, and is now preparing to show a completely new car – Facel V.
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Even before Facel began producing cars, she was engaged in sheet metal stamping. And after the Second World War, combined with the metallurgical Métallon, she began to make specific bodies for Simca, Ford, Panhard and Delahaye. These were mainly coupes and convertibles. However, with the growing popularity of load-bearing structures and the transition to mass unification, Facel lost all major customers and reoriented to creating their own machines.
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The first independent model of the Facel Vega brand was the FV1 coupe with the Chrysler V8 4.5 engine, introduced in 1954. In 1956, the model acquired a 5.4-liter unit, and the company also developed a four-door version of the Vega called Excellence. The latest V8 engine was the luxurious and sleek Facel Vega II.
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In 1960, the company launched Facellia, a sports car the size of a Mercedes-Benz 190SL. It was assumed that the model would become a mass, but the unsuccessful engine produced by Pont-à-Mousson, deprived Facel of any profit. The unit constantly broke down, and to maintain the image, the company changed it to a new one for free. The Pont-à-Mousson engine later gave way to the Volvo B18 engine, but Facel still sold Facellia at a loss.
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The most successful model was Facel 6 with a six-cylinder engine 2.9 from Austin-Healey 3000. He believes that the car came out quite late to save the company, so Facel released only 44 copies of the “six”, and after a while it completely closed.
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And now, after 56 years, the company is preparing a new model. Judging by the images, the Facel V coupe retained the proportions common with its predecessors, as well as the vertical optics characteristic of Facel. The car will get a V8 6.0 engine, developing 510 or 550 forces, and carbon-ceramic brakes. The standard version will accelerate to one hundred in 3.7 seconds, Performance – for 3.5.
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In the configurator on the Facel website, the Bentley Continental GT interior is demonstrated. Perhaps this is no coincidence, and it will be he who will become the basis for the new Vega. Moreover, in the history of the company there were already cars on the Bentley Mark VI chassis: in 1948, Facel built a piece Cresta, and in 1951 Cresta II.
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