Facel Vega Excellence
The Facel Vega Excellence was a luxury luxury sedan of the French car maker Facel SA. The model was produced from 1958 to 1964. It was first presented in Paris at the Mondial de l'Automobile in October 1956 to obtain ratings from the trade press.
- 3.1 EX
- 3.2 EX1
- 3.3 EX2
History
Production began in 1958 and lasted until the end of production of the company in 1964. The car was built on the chassis of the Facel Vega FV extended and remained the only four-door model of the company. A total of 156 vehicles were produced. The small number manufactured Excellence had its basis in the exorbitant purchase price of the car. For new vehicles was about this is four times the original price of a Citroen DS sedan that not just was one of the special offers. The already extremely high base price could still increase significantly if you have ordered special equipment that was available during the production period of the carriage by one. These were, for example, Power steering, power brakes, power windows, wire spoke wheels or air conditioning.
Construction
The Excellence had design elements of contemporary, American cars, such as tail fins, panoramic windshield and a lack of B-pillars ( " hardtop "). The basic form with their arranged above the turn signals headlights and the sleek, low look was clearly European. The low waistline and the roof were high compared to typical design elements of the late 1950s, the state remained in the 1960s. The Facel -Vega Excellence offered four doors. The rear-hinged rear doors, along with the lack of B-pillars enabled the rear passengers easy access. This layout was also found in the Lancia and made only a few copies Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, which was introduced in late 1956, as well as the Lincoln Continental model years 1961 to 1969.
The interior was spacious, with leather-covered seats, a dashboard made of walnut wood imitation with rich instrumentation, and a make- up kit in the rear of the center armrest. The latter consisted of a comb and a brush with chrome handles and two - but empty - perfume bottles. However, the interior was not nearly as spacious as you would expect from a car with a wheelbase of more than three meters.
The Excellence was a high-performance vehicle and was one of the best GTs Europe. Some American high performance cars, especially the Chrysler 300, the Excellence could indeed surpass in engine performance, but were not as well designed and manufactured in quality, they also did not offer the " flair " of a Facel Vega. Although the Exzellence not inferior to the large U.S. sedans in the wheelbase, he was much shorter, narrower, and above all lower than they. Its dimensions were relatively compact and the road situation was better than in comparable American vehicles.
In an article in the November 1985 issue of the magazine Collectible Automobile wrote the well-known automotive historian Richard Langworth, that in his opinion " ( ..) the Excellence was a great vehicle, (...) which is better than state coach as for everyday use. " How did he come to this conclusion, contrary to the unanimous positive reviews of the handling characteristics of Excellence by the contemporary trade press and also by its owners since then has always been a point of contention.
Compounds with Chrysler
Like other Facel -Vega models, the first Excellence were also driven by the Chrysler V8 engines available at that time, the famous Hemi engines that Chrysler produced until 1957. Facel put these engines by the end of 1958, when the last inventory was consumed. Since then, the V8 Facel Vegas were equipped with the Chrysler RB -wedge big block engines.
All Facel -Vega with Chrysler engines were either the four-speed manual transmission of Pont- à -Mousson or the Chrysler supplied supplied, three-stage automatic transmission TorqueFlite. The U.S. automatic transmission was available for Facel -Vega as special equipment and in return they offered in the U.S., the French four-speed manual transmission in certain Chrysler high-performance models as an optional extra on.
Models
EX
Facel Vega Excellence EX
The at the Mondial de l'Automobile 1956 issued Excellence EX had a V8 engine with 5424 cc capacity. The first production series received a 4.8 - liter engine with 250 hp (184 kW) and a top speed of 190 km / h, and the second a 4.9 - liter engine with 260 hp (191 kW) and was equipped with a three-stage TorqueFlite automatic transmission from Chrysler or with four-speed manual transmission available. Standard equipment included leather seats, all round tinted glass and power windows. As an optional extra, there was a car phone that was installed with the help of the French postal and telecommunications company PTT. As of May 1958, the model is a version of the Hemi engine was awarded with 6423 cc displacement and an output of 367 hp ( 270 kW), which, inter alia, was also used in the HK 500 and the products manufactured by Chrysler Imperial. Contemporary road tests showed that both the automatic and the manual transmission versions brought the same performance on the road. The cars had drum brakes on all four wheels, the front with a diameter of 286 mm, rear 280 mm diameter. The fuel tank 140 l took Probably the strongest ever built Excellence was a real 140 -mile (224 km / h) car. Supposedly have survived from the eleven -built EX- seven copies to date.
EX1
Facel Vega Excellence EX1
Chrysler had stopped the construction of the Hemi engines Already in late 1957, and were the Facel Vega equipped after the exhaustion of stocks with the Chrysler Wedge V8 engine with 5916 cc capacity. Why not opted for the former top Chrysler engine with 6768 cc capacity, remains a mystery. Frequently the French, displacement based vehicle tax system is cited as the reason.
Anyway, the 5.9 -liter Excellence was anything but weak. He had the same rated power, we have equipped with the Hemi engine predecessors. From the end of 1959 disc brakes were on request forward for the Excellence available.
The 1958-1961 Excellence EX1 was built with 137 copies of the most frequently built version.
EX2
Facel Vega Excellence EX2
His only facelift received the Excellence in July 1961., The wheelbase was increased by 10 mm, the outer length by 45 mm. The engine had become larger. He now had 6276 cc and made 394 hp (290 kW). This performance specification caused a stir, especially in a sedan. In contemporary road tests, however, no noticeable improvement in performance could be detected. The first series of Excellence with Hemi engine was and remained the fastest ever built version.
The EX2 had no panoramic windscreen and the rear fins were severely curtailed, which gave him a much less extravagant appearance. Nevertheless, the appearance of the new model was not much more modern, but rather lost some of its former elegance. A complete redesign would have been far too expensive, especially with the limited supply. The EX2 reached a top speed of 200-210 km / h He was equipped with the same disc brakes as the HC1. From the version EX2 emerged in three years, only eight copies, then the model was discontinued without successors.
In France, the price for the first time was in October 1961 at the Mondial Automobile de'l shown EX2 with automatic transmission in NF 72.500, -, a price for which you could buy twelve Renault Dauphine.
Talks with Studebaker -Packard?
At the suggestion of a resident of New York City investors conglomerate, which had 1959 interested in buying the U.S. luxury brand Packard, there should have been negotiations between the CEO of the Studebaker -Packard Corporation, Harold Churchill, and Facel chief Jean Daninos. They wanted to Excellence with Packard emblems and the typical Packard " Ochsenjoch " front grille on the exclusive Studebaker -Packard dealer in the U.S. to offer. This was vehemently denied by Daninos and depicted as " fantasy of an American car dealer ". Facels design office had never dealt with such plans and he himself never had any contact with the Packard Motor Car Company, or their successors.
The last Packard was built in 1958. The capacities obtained by the cessation of production were then used for the new compact cars Studebaker Lark. Daimler -Benz, which had already entered into a distribution agreement with the Studebaker -Packard and used the Studebaker dealer network to sell its Mercedes-Benz brand in the U.S., this plan opposed. Churchill had to be clear that he was never able to get the same financial support as Daimler -Benz Facel and so you ended this project. Although the Facel Vega Excellence in Packard execution reached the planning stage, but contrary to popular rumors never created a single prototype. [Note 1]
Nevertheless, several Excellence by private individuals in the United States were exported.
In the film,
A Facel Vega Excellence was published in 1959 in the movie queen with Deborah Kerr and Maurice Chevalier.
More Excellence immerse briefly in the movie Do Brahms? of 1961, in the comedy series Le temps des copains and in the movie 40 million are looking at a man from 1963, as well as in the films of Slaughter 1972 The ice-cold Wolf in 1990.
It was in each of these cases the version EX2.