‘I saw Eternity the other night,’ wrote the 17th-century religious poet Henry Vaughan, arrestingly combining the numinous and the mundane.
‘I saw Eternity the other night,’ wrote the 17th-century religious poet Henry Vaughan, arrestingly combining the numinous and the mundane. ‘I drove a Facel Vega the other day’ may not be quite as evocative, but in automotive terms it’s not much less likely. Around 3,000 of them were built during the decade 1954–64. They were boulevard supercars, bought by royalty, tycoons, Grand Prix drivers (including Stirling Moss) and glitterati such as Ava Gardner, Ringo Starr and Tony Curtis. It’s sometimes wrongly said that Picasso had one; he owned a Mercedes 300SL, but he couldn’t drive.
Like much that is memorable in the motor industry, they were the product of one mind: Jean Daninos, an astute French engineer and entrepreneur with a playboy reputation. A former Olympic speed-skater, he was brother of Pierre Daninos, author of the Major Thompson books. In his eighties he maintained two mistresses, both in their forties, and drove a Porsche 911.
Trained by André Citroën, he began his industrial career stamping and welding alloys and stainless steel for the aviation industry. Facel (Forges et Ateliers de Construction d’Eure-et-Loir) was his factory at Colombes, the second-largest stamping concern in France, with presses of up to 2,000 tons. It may have been producing 45,000 all-aluminium bodies for Panhard that partly prompted him to indulge his weakness for fast luxury cars by building one himself. But he had also owned six Bentleys, and in 1950 he produced — in agreement with Rolls-Royce — his own version of the Mark VI. Known as the Bentley Cresta, it was as elegant as it is rare (the production run was 17, of which eight are known) and its lines anticipate the Vega.
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