Facel Vega HK500. A childhood dream or a nightmare?
Discussion
So, on with the story...
Just before the car went back to Hayling Island to have the paint damage repaired, Steve managed to start the car briefly to check the engine's vital signs. The biggest issue was a radiator that wasn't keen on keeping water on the inside!
So, before the car was dispatched the radiator came out and was sent off for a quote to re-core it. Cooling on all V8 Facels has become somewhat marginal over time. I'm sure they must have been fine when new as they were used as everyday cars in some pretty hot places, but the inevitable silting up and corroding of water galleries in the block together with a reduction in radiator efficiency over time does a big V8 in a confined space no favours at all. Other owners had warned me that this might be a potential problem.
The Facel ll was worse than the HK500. A design flaw in the radiator allows much of the water returning from the engine to flow straight back without going through the core at all! Apparenty, this can be fixed by installing a baffle that forces the coolant to flow through the core rather than around it, but the cooling is still said to be a bit marginal.
In the case of the HK, there is very little fan shrouding so overheating issues can occur when stationary or in slow traffic. When the quote for a re-core came back it was more than half the cost of having a bespoke aluminium radiator made locally by one of the F1 suppliers. On that basis, I went for broke and ordered a high efficiency aluminium one in the hope of preventing any cooling issues further down the line.
This was manufactured whilst the car was away, using the original radiator as a template.
Seeing that the car was going back to Gary, it made sense for him to fit the doors, boot and bonnet. As part of this process he would also fit the finned aluminium sill covers, which he had already cut to shape and trial fitted. The covers are a potential corrosion problem both from the standpoint of retaining any water that penetrates between the trim and the bodywork and because of the possibility of electrolytic reaction between the aluminium trim and the steel body.
Having taken advice from others I decided that coating the bodywork and the back of the trim panels with Waxoyl was probably the best option as it would repel any water whilst not solidifying. Of course, anything is better than the way the car left the factory, as they did absolutely nothing in this regard. I'm not quite sure what will happen to the Waxoyl if the car is left all day in strong summer sunshine, but I guess I'll find out in due course! How hard can it be to remove half a litre of the stuff from your driveway?! (Yeah, I know, it's a right pain!)
A few weeks later and it was off back down to the south coast to see the results.
Fitting the sill trims isn't easy as you want the door gaps as tight as possible, but the trim needs to be bent around the bottom of the door, so there needs to be enough clearance to accommodate that. As you can see (sorry for the sideways picture...I've just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to rotate it) the door fits pretty well and the stainless trim lines up down the side of the car. The finishers that fit to the wheel arches and along the base of the sill are not in place in the photo.
Gary's work to repair the damaged paint was terrific. As I'd hoped, you would never know.
Pretty soon the car was back with Steve, this time having been transported without incident.
The next few months were consumed in sourcing and then fitting all the door, bonnet and boot seals, many of which are unique to the HK500. As you will immediately guess, the fact that there were only 500 or so cars in the first place and not all of them have survived will mean demand for these seals is very limited. Ultra low volume production means prices are not for the faint hearted. A complete set of seals, including windows was around €1700+VAT last time I looked, several years ago. That's a lot of money for an assortment of squishy rubber, but it just reflects the production cost per unit.
The thing is, I know that these parts are mainly sourced through UK suppliers. I spent hours on the web going through the catalogues of the various companies checking to see if the profiles used on the Facel were common to any other cars. I'll save anyone else the time...many of the rubber profiles seem to be unique. So, hats off to Amicale Facel Holland for remanufacturing these parts in tiny numbers. Without them it would be so much more difficult to bring a Facel back from the dead.
At this time we also tried to resolve the issue of the rear lights. Cars destined for the USA had different rear lights from those going to Europe and the rest of the world. This is the European set up, with the distinctive inserts that light up a letter 'V' for Vega at night. (Sorry, I've given up with the sideways nonsense!)
My car was missing both the red perspex 'V' pieces and the stainless trim that runs along the edge of the rear wing to hold them in place. After years of searching Ian Webb, who had been involved with Facels for years let me know that he had the parts and would sell them to me at a reasonable price. To say I bit his hand off is an understatement, as my car was originally supplied with Euro lights, but they had gone missing years ago (and were probably still on that mezzanine floor in Kettering)!
The American lights do without the 'V's, but have a much more ornate lens sourced from a 1957 Chrysler Imperial. Typical of Facel, these lights were one year only and on one model only, so trying to get hold of them now isn't easy. Mine came all the way from Australia via Ebay!
To complicate matters the stainless rear light trims that hold the lenses in place are different for American and Euro cars. Those for Europe have two cut outs at each end to accept the edges of the trim running over the wing, the American ones don't.
By now I had amassed a complete pair of the American and European lights. My plan had been to go 'American' as I thought I'd never find the rear wing trims necessary for the European lights. The (easy) decision was taken to go the European route and Steve set about making them fit.
In the meantime battle with the dashboard was resumed! Apart from the mysterious growing centre section it was putting up a fight on a number of fronts. The wiper motor positioning is very tight and the long metal levers that activate the wipers themselves have a mind of their own. It is almost impossible to set them up so that they don't rub against something. I'm sure part of the problem is that there is inevitably some play in all the joints.
The back of the ammeter is perilously close to other metal parts behind the dash and I'm told shorting of ammeters is one of the most common causes of electrical fires in older cars. I didn't want to take any chances in that area!
Finally, the rev counter was insistent on trying to run backwards, which had Steve perplexed. As it was Beaulieu Autojumble time of year, I set off down south to try and find someone on one of the stands that might have a suitable gearbox to change the direction of the drive off the back of the dynamo. Although I found a couple of parts that would do the job, they were from 1930s cars and were really too big to fit in the available space, so I came home empty handed (well, empty handed in that regard...I bought a load of other stuff I didn't need, as is usually the case with Beaulieu)!
With all these issues mounting up, I think Steve was beginning to think he was never going to get the car over the finishing line, simply because he didn't have the specialist Facel knowledge needed from this point on. I was also coming to the same conclusion, so Steve and I agreed the car needed to go to someone who had wrestled with Facels before.
As you can imagine, these people are the human equivalent of hen's teeth.
Right back at the beginning of the project, Hans Ruhe of Amicale Facel Holland had offered to completely restore my car for me for the princely sum of £20,000. With hindsight, that would have been the bargain of the century, but at the time it seemed like an awful lot of money! Hans had since teamed up with another restoration company called Classic Job and between them they are the 'go to' people for all things Facel, from the supply of small parts right through to complete restorations. In many ways, they were the obvious choice.
There were a couple of other people I'd come across in the UK who had worked on, or were working on Facels. The common theme in feedback from others was that they were all glacially slow, so it could be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire.
And then there was Ian Webb.
I'd got to know Ian quite well over the years. He hadn't just worked on the odd Facel, he'd restored a number of them and at one time, it was pretty much all he did. He'd been out of the picture for some years working for a luxury boat manufacturer, but had returned and set up his own restoration business. At the time I contacted him, he already had two Facels on the go.
So, after a couple of conversations Ian agreed to take my car on and get it finished. On 13th December 2016 the car was packed into Steve's transporter and taken down to Ian's business in Cornwall.
Ian had agreed over the phone that a timescale of six months for completion was realistic, so I was in high spirits as 2016 turned into 2017.
Having specific knowledge of a make of car is so valuable. On the day we took the car down I mentioned the rev counter problem to Ian. After about five minutes searching in the various boxes of bits that accompanied the car he came back with a small metal piece in his hand...the gearbox for the rev counter drive. It had been there all along, we just didn't know what we were looking for.
But, I was also aware of a potential issue. Handing over a partly finished car could be leaving myself wide open to a lot of reworking of things that were already 'fixed'. Time would tell.
Just before the car went back to Hayling Island to have the paint damage repaired, Steve managed to start the car briefly to check the engine's vital signs. The biggest issue was a radiator that wasn't keen on keeping water on the inside!
So, before the car was dispatched the radiator came out and was sent off for a quote to re-core it. Cooling on all V8 Facels has become somewhat marginal over time. I'm sure they must have been fine when new as they were used as everyday cars in some pretty hot places, but the inevitable silting up and corroding of water galleries in the block together with a reduction in radiator efficiency over time does a big V8 in a confined space no favours at all. Other owners had warned me that this might be a potential problem.
The Facel ll was worse than the HK500. A design flaw in the radiator allows much of the water returning from the engine to flow straight back without going through the core at all! Apparenty, this can be fixed by installing a baffle that forces the coolant to flow through the core rather than around it, but the cooling is still said to be a bit marginal.
In the case of the HK, there is very little fan shrouding so overheating issues can occur when stationary or in slow traffic. When the quote for a re-core came back it was more than half the cost of having a bespoke aluminium radiator made locally by one of the F1 suppliers. On that basis, I went for broke and ordered a high efficiency aluminium one in the hope of preventing any cooling issues further down the line.
This was manufactured whilst the car was away, using the original radiator as a template.
Seeing that the car was going back to Gary, it made sense for him to fit the doors, boot and bonnet. As part of this process he would also fit the finned aluminium sill covers, which he had already cut to shape and trial fitted. The covers are a potential corrosion problem both from the standpoint of retaining any water that penetrates between the trim and the bodywork and because of the possibility of electrolytic reaction between the aluminium trim and the steel body.
Having taken advice from others I decided that coating the bodywork and the back of the trim panels with Waxoyl was probably the best option as it would repel any water whilst not solidifying. Of course, anything is better than the way the car left the factory, as they did absolutely nothing in this regard. I'm not quite sure what will happen to the Waxoyl if the car is left all day in strong summer sunshine, but I guess I'll find out in due course! How hard can it be to remove half a litre of the stuff from your driveway?! (Yeah, I know, it's a right pain!)
A few weeks later and it was off back down to the south coast to see the results.
Fitting the sill trims isn't easy as you want the door gaps as tight as possible, but the trim needs to be bent around the bottom of the door, so there needs to be enough clearance to accommodate that. As you can see (sorry for the sideways picture...I've just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to rotate it) the door fits pretty well and the stainless trim lines up down the side of the car. The finishers that fit to the wheel arches and along the base of the sill are not in place in the photo.
Gary's work to repair the damaged paint was terrific. As I'd hoped, you would never know.
Pretty soon the car was back with Steve, this time having been transported without incident.
The next few months were consumed in sourcing and then fitting all the door, bonnet and boot seals, many of which are unique to the HK500. As you will immediately guess, the fact that there were only 500 or so cars in the first place and not all of them have survived will mean demand for these seals is very limited. Ultra low volume production means prices are not for the faint hearted. A complete set of seals, including windows was around €1700+VAT last time I looked, several years ago. That's a lot of money for an assortment of squishy rubber, but it just reflects the production cost per unit.
The thing is, I know that these parts are mainly sourced through UK suppliers. I spent hours on the web going through the catalogues of the various companies checking to see if the profiles used on the Facel were common to any other cars. I'll save anyone else the time...many of the rubber profiles seem to be unique. So, hats off to Amicale Facel Holland for remanufacturing these parts in tiny numbers. Without them it would be so much more difficult to bring a Facel back from the dead.
At this time we also tried to resolve the issue of the rear lights. Cars destined for the USA had different rear lights from those going to Europe and the rest of the world. This is the European set up, with the distinctive inserts that light up a letter 'V' for Vega at night. (Sorry, I've given up with the sideways nonsense!)
My car was missing both the red perspex 'V' pieces and the stainless trim that runs along the edge of the rear wing to hold them in place. After years of searching Ian Webb, who had been involved with Facels for years let me know that he had the parts and would sell them to me at a reasonable price. To say I bit his hand off is an understatement, as my car was originally supplied with Euro lights, but they had gone missing years ago (and were probably still on that mezzanine floor in Kettering)!
The American lights do without the 'V's, but have a much more ornate lens sourced from a 1957 Chrysler Imperial. Typical of Facel, these lights were one year only and on one model only, so trying to get hold of them now isn't easy. Mine came all the way from Australia via Ebay!
To complicate matters the stainless rear light trims that hold the lenses in place are different for American and Euro cars. Those for Europe have two cut outs at each end to accept the edges of the trim running over the wing, the American ones don't.
By now I had amassed a complete pair of the American and European lights. My plan had been to go 'American' as I thought I'd never find the rear wing trims necessary for the European lights. The (easy) decision was taken to go the European route and Steve set about making them fit.
In the meantime battle with the dashboard was resumed! Apart from the mysterious growing centre section it was putting up a fight on a number of fronts. The wiper motor positioning is very tight and the long metal levers that activate the wipers themselves have a mind of their own. It is almost impossible to set them up so that they don't rub against something. I'm sure part of the problem is that there is inevitably some play in all the joints.
The back of the ammeter is perilously close to other metal parts behind the dash and I'm told shorting of ammeters is one of the most common causes of electrical fires in older cars. I didn't want to take any chances in that area!
Finally, the rev counter was insistent on trying to run backwards, which had Steve perplexed. As it was Beaulieu Autojumble time of year, I set off down south to try and find someone on one of the stands that might have a suitable gearbox to change the direction of the drive off the back of the dynamo. Although I found a couple of parts that would do the job, they were from 1930s cars and were really too big to fit in the available space, so I came home empty handed (well, empty handed in that regard...I bought a load of other stuff I didn't need, as is usually the case with Beaulieu)!
With all these issues mounting up, I think Steve was beginning to think he was never going to get the car over the finishing line, simply because he didn't have the specialist Facel knowledge needed from this point on. I was also coming to the same conclusion, so Steve and I agreed the car needed to go to someone who had wrestled with Facels before.
As you can imagine, these people are the human equivalent of hen's teeth.
Right back at the beginning of the project, Hans Ruhe of Amicale Facel Holland had offered to completely restore my car for me for the princely sum of £20,000. With hindsight, that would have been the bargain of the century, but at the time it seemed like an awful lot of money! Hans had since teamed up with another restoration company called Classic Job and between them they are the 'go to' people for all things Facel, from the supply of small parts right through to complete restorations. In many ways, they were the obvious choice.
There were a couple of other people I'd come across in the UK who had worked on, or were working on Facels. The common theme in feedback from others was that they were all glacially slow, so it could be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire.
And then there was Ian Webb.
I'd got to know Ian quite well over the years. He hadn't just worked on the odd Facel, he'd restored a number of them and at one time, it was pretty much all he did. He'd been out of the picture for some years working for a luxury boat manufacturer, but had returned and set up his own restoration business. At the time I contacted him, he already had two Facels on the go.
So, after a couple of conversations Ian agreed to take my car on and get it finished. On 13th December 2016 the car was packed into Steve's transporter and taken down to Ian's business in Cornwall.
Ian had agreed over the phone that a timescale of six months for completion was realistic, so I was in high spirits as 2016 turned into 2017.
Having specific knowledge of a make of car is so valuable. On the day we took the car down I mentioned the rev counter problem to Ian. After about five minutes searching in the various boxes of bits that accompanied the car he came back with a small metal piece in his hand...the gearbox for the rev counter drive. It had been there all along, we just didn't know what we were looking for.
But, I was also aware of a potential issue. Handing over a partly finished car could be leaving myself wide open to a lot of reworking of things that were already 'fixed'. Time would tell.
Just wanted to join the chorus and say how much i enjoyed reading this entire epic, at times agonizing but altogether glorious thread, you are doing something very special here. What a car!
Heres those pictures rotated to be portrait
Heres those pictures rotated to be portrait
Edited by Green2JZWagon on Thursday 23 February 18:18
Edited by Green2JZWagon on Thursday 23 February 18:18
Green2JZWagon said:
Just wanted to join the chorus and say how much i enjoyed reading this entire epic, at times agonizing but altogether glorious thread, you are doing something very special here. What a car!
Heres those pictures rotated to be portrait
How did you do that!???Heres those pictures rotated to be portrait
Edited by Green2JZWagon on Thursday 23 February 18:18
Edited by Green2JZWagon on Thursday 23 February 18:18
...and thanks for the kind words, it's much appreciated.
AW111 said:
theadman said:
williamp said:
This is getting exciting!!!
Please don't get too excited...there's another six years to go yet 
It took six months to get the car finished to perfection, and you've spent the subsequent 5 1/2 years happily driving it?
It's interesting to follow the various pitfalls of restoring a rare and difficult vehicle.
Although I'm in several minds about this, given the OP's posting style. Will it it be:
- and now for sale in the classifieds as a "nearly complete" project
- since Dave, Clive, Brian, Nigel, Barry and Phil had all ultimately failed with the car, it's now with Facel expert Quentin, who promises me it will be complete within 6 months
- I will be completing the work in my spare time and expect to have it roadworthy for the summer
- the transporters have damaged it so it will need to be stripped and repainted.
- it's actually finished.
prace bets now !
classicaholic said:
I particularly like the last paragraph of the auction description...'With just under 75,000 miles recorded, this stylish Grand Routier should prove to be a straightforward restoration or preservation project for the discerning collector.'
You might have guessed the italics are mine!
outnumbered said:
It's interesting to follow the various pitfalls of restoring a rare and difficult vehicle.
Although I'm in several minds about this, given the OP's posting style. Will it it be:
- and now for sale in the classifieds as a "nearly complete" project
- since Dave, Clive, Brian, Nigel, Barry and Phil had all ultimately failed with the car, it's now with Facel expert Quentin, who promises me it will be complete within 6 months
- I will be completing the work in my spare time and expect to have it roadworthy for the summer
- the transporters have damaged it so it will need to be stripped and repainted.
- it's actually finished.
prace bets now !
Outnumbered, I'm sure you've guessed it won't be option 1, not after so long and so much grief! Although I'm in several minds about this, given the OP's posting style. Will it it be:
- and now for sale in the classifieds as a "nearly complete" project
- since Dave, Clive, Brian, Nigel, Barry and Phil had all ultimately failed with the car, it's now with Facel expert Quentin, who promises me it will be complete within 6 months
- I will be completing the work in my spare time and expect to have it roadworthy for the summer
- the transporters have damaged it so it will need to be stripped and repainted.
- it's actually finished.
prace bets now !
If you'd seen me operating a spanner you'd know option 3 is highly unlikely too!
Spare parts...sorted!
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-1960-facel...
A hk500 up for auction in April. No reserve, and needs a proper detail, and will also need to rip,out that old radio for a proper system with speakers, amp, bass box and decent head unit, so taking all that into account, bid 'em £1500 quid??? : D
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-1960-facel...
A hk500 up for auction in April. No reserve, and needs a proper detail, and will also need to rip,out that old radio for a proper system with speakers, amp, bass box and decent head unit, so taking all that into account, bid 'em £1500 quid??? : D
I do love the Facel Vega! And I have to admire the efforts of the OP to keep going with this.... many would have given up and sold it on by now! I hope I can show the same level of commitment to my own restoration projects :-)
The Facel Vega comes from such an elegant era of cars - one which I think gets over looked by many. Similar to this are these slightly left-field British versions of the 2 door 4 seat coupe formula... though both lack the muscle that the Facel packs under the bonnet. For something closer, we'd have to wait for the (slightly less attractive - IMO) Bristol 407 with the Chrysler V8.
Bristol 406
Alvis 3 Litre TF21
I'd love a Facel, Bristol or an Alvis as an addition to the fleet!
Good luck OP - keep the updates coming!
AF
The Facel Vega comes from such an elegant era of cars - one which I think gets over looked by many. Similar to this are these slightly left-field British versions of the 2 door 4 seat coupe formula... though both lack the muscle that the Facel packs under the bonnet. For something closer, we'd have to wait for the (slightly less attractive - IMO) Bristol 407 with the Chrysler V8.
Bristol 406
Alvis 3 Litre TF21
I'd love a Facel, Bristol or an Alvis as an addition to the fleet!
Good luck OP - keep the updates coming!
AF
williamp said:
Spare parts...sorted!
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-1960-facel...
A hk500 up for auction in April.
Thanks for sharing this williamp.https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-1960-facel...
A hk500 up for auction in April.
When I bought my car in 1999 I believe there were only a handful of roadworthy HK500s in the UK, but quite a number of cars like this one that were just sitting around awaiting their fate. They tended to continue to sit around as restoring one wasn't a viable proposition, so no-one wanted a parts car either.
Then values started to climb and all of a sudden cars like this one started to sell, not for parts but for restoration. With more cars being restored the need for parts cars increased, just as supply contracted. The result is the prices we are now seeing.
When I started restoring mine I found a suitable parts car which was pretty rough. I wasn't willing to spend the £1700 required to buy it. That car might fetch £30k now, so it would have been a good investment!
Having gone to the Dore and Rees auction, the car there was a pretty good starting point as it was complete, but everything needed attention.
Let's see what the H and H car makes.
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