Facel Vega HK500. A childhood dream or a nightmare?
Discussion
Several Facels up for sale in the Palmen barn find auction over the next couple of weeks https://www.classiccar-auctions.com/palmen. Quite a bonanza for spare parts. The owners' clubs are probably all over it already.
Rumdoodle said:
Several Facels up for sale in the Palmen barn find auction over the next couple of weeks https://www.classiccar-auctions.com/palmen. Quite a bonanza for spare parts. The owners' clubs are probably all over it already.
The prices 'barn finds' are fetching compared to the value of restored cars is not in proportion. Whilst this trend continues it isn't really viable to buy a car for parts unless you have deep pockets and are desperate for a number of show stopping items. Even then, it is likely to be a costly exercise.I'm not sure the clubs will be in the same league as some of the collectors when it comes to the Palmen cars. However, the fact that there are so many of them all at once might make the prices a bit more affordable.
mdk1 said:
Very nice one featuring in the latest Harry’s Garage vid on YouTube.
Apparently one of two RHD Facel lls fitted with the larger 413 cu in (6750cc) engine and manual transmission, the other being the car originally owned by Ringo Starr.I'm afraid the momentum has been temporarily lost on documenting the HK500 saga. Probably one more installment will bring us up to date, so once it cools down a bit, I'll complete the job! I'm surprised how time consuming it is to write something that makes sense and then upload the relevant pictures.
I'm amazed there has been so much interest, to be honest...so, thank you everyone!
I noticed that the HK500 registered HKK 1D (or HK KID) was sold at the Historics auction at Ascot on 27th May. When I last saw the car it was a sombre shade of dark green, having been restored in the 1990s. Apparently, it is fresh out of another £50k restoration with a change of colour to gold and bronze.
https://www.historics.co.uk/buying/auctions/2023-2...
I'd be interested to know what the sale price or high bid was, as this is the first HK500 for sale in the UK in a while that hasn't needed restoration. The H&H barn find made nearly £60k (inc premium) in April, which I felt was very strong money having experienced the cost of bringing one of these cars back from the brink.
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/15-1960-facel-...
https://www.historics.co.uk/buying/auctions/2023-2...
I'd be interested to know what the sale price or high bid was, as this is the first HK500 for sale in the UK in a while that hasn't needed restoration. The H&H barn find made nearly £60k (inc premium) in April, which I felt was very strong money having experienced the cost of bringing one of these cars back from the brink.
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/15-1960-facel-...
theadman said:
I noticed that the HK500 registered HKK 1D (or HK KID) was sold at the Historics auction at Ascot on 27th May. When I last saw the car it was a sombre shade of dark green, having been restored in the 1990s. Apparently, it is fresh out of another £50k restoration with a change of colour to gold and bronze.
https://www.historics.co.uk/buying/auctions/2023-2...
I'd be interested to know what the sale price or high bid was, as this is the first HK500 for sale in the UK in a while that hasn't needed restoration. The H&H barn find made nearly £60k (inc premium) in April, which I felt was very strong money having experienced the cost of bringing one of these cars back from the brink.
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/15-1960-facel-...
Just a note to say I'm finding this thread utterly fascinating. https://www.historics.co.uk/buying/auctions/2023-2...
I'd be interested to know what the sale price or high bid was, as this is the first HK500 for sale in the UK in a while that hasn't needed restoration. The H&H barn find made nearly £60k (inc premium) in April, which I felt was very strong money having experienced the cost of bringing one of these cars back from the brink.
https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/15-1960-facel-...
The reworked Gold / Bronze Auction car appears to have been purchased by Kevin Wheatcroft (WW2 memorabilia collector and son of Tom Wheatcroft of Donington Park fame).
link to the Wheatcroft Collection facebook post (if it works)
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=25324370410828...
adblack28 said:
Just a note to say I'm finding this thread utterly fascinating.
The reworked Gold / Bronze Auction car appears to have been purchased by Kevin Wheatcroft (WW2 memorabilia collector and son of Tom Wheatcroft of Donington Park fame).
link to the Wheatcroft Collection facebook post (if it works)
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=25324370410828...
Thanks adblack. Whilst writing this has been quite cathartic, it is a real bonus when people let me know they're interested. The reworked Gold / Bronze Auction car appears to have been purchased by Kevin Wheatcroft (WW2 memorabilia collector and son of Tom Wheatcroft of Donington Park fame).
link to the Wheatcroft Collection facebook post (if it works)
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=25324370410828...
Thanks also for the information about the Wheatcroft Collection purchase...the link does work!
It's currently raining, it's cool and I've finally managed to find some spare time. So I've run out of excuses...on with the story...
The end of 2019 was a real milestone. By this point, every aspect of the car had received attention, the last rather large item being the rebuild of the supposedly rebuilt engine! Surely, it could only be downhill from here?
Entering 2020 with renewed optimism Ian started to tackle the 'to do' list.
The rear lights were permanently fitted, having been trial fitted several times. This also included fixing an earthing fault that meant the rear lights had a mind of their own!
This picture is from an earlier trial fit.
When I bought the car, the rear light lenses were present, but in awful condition and the 'V' perspex pieces along with the rear wing trims that go over them were missing.
A few years earlier I had managed to buy the wing trims and a non matching pair of 'V' pieces (the ones on the HK500 are different from the preceding models and I had one of each)! Now the car was being restored to a higher standard the light lenses were not up to scratch. Also, once a lit bulb was placed behind them, it was apparent that they had lost most of their colour...the light was pale pink rather than red!
The first step was to see if replacements were available through Amicale Facel Holland, the 'go to' stockists of all things Facel Vega. They were, but at a price that made me wince.
I decided to see what other options were available. The lenses themselves weren't too expensive, it was the 'V' pieces that ramped the cost up. Through a completely different avenue I came across someone locally who had a massive computer programmed 'cutting machine' (CNC machine?). It filled his double garage and was a serious piece of kit!
He told me that cutting some new 'V' pieces would be very simple and, compared to some of the intricate work he was doing, I felt sure it would. The next time I visited the car in Cornwall I brought the pieces back with me and made detailed patterns. Armed with these I went to see my CNC friend and he set his machine up. All we needed now was the correct perspex material. The fact the original was 9.3mm thick did not bode well for a complete match! However, 10mm would do.
To cut a long story short, trying to source dark red, translucent 10mm sheet proved impossible, unless I bought yards and yards of it. Various suppliers promised samples that never turned up and I even found a website that was an aggregator for Chinese production facilities. On there I came across a promising lead, but when I tracked it through, it actually led to Pilkington in the UK. A rather strange phone call then ensued with the people at Pilkington who professed to have no knowledge of working with perspex or similar sheet. As I discovered, you can waste days on the internet trying to track down fairly simple commodities.
At that point, the person's CNC machine seriously malfunctioned and was going to cost thousands to repair. It became obvious that this project was not going to fly, so I just bit the bullet and bought the parts from Holland (but I'm getting ahead of the story)!
The next thing tackled was the speedometer. Somehow the thing had completely screwed itself up. This picture was taken at the NEC Show in 2017. It's a poor photo, but you just might be able to make out that the stationary car is travelling at 120mph according to the speedo. (Sorry the picture has decided to go antipodean!)
The other thing I noticed subsequently was that the odometer had somehow gained 10,000 miles! Here it is in 2010...
and this was taken in 2020.
Maybe the car did actually work and Ian had been using it for Uber duties every evening?
More likely, the speedo was caput as fuel consumption alone would rule out the Uber option!
Ian managed to fix the speedo without having to resort to another trip to Speedy Cables and the inevitable long wait, but could do nothing about the additional 10,000 miles. This is a shame as I have a strong suspicion the 59,900 miles shown originally is the correct mileage for the car.
We are still none the wiser as to how the final digit of the odometer could move, leaving the rest in place. There was possibly something awry back in 2010, as the middle numbers were not aligned.
Having had the speedometer out of the car, it was time to refit all the instruments and then sort out their illumination, along with the four warning lights between the main dials. This was a time consuming job as none of the dash lights had been operational for almost 50 years and exact bulb replacements are no longer available! The same could be said for the interior lights, which should operate both off a switch on the centre console and via the door switches. Most of this wiring had long since disappeared, so had to be completely remade, having first determined how the original wiring loom was routed.
This stage in the process really highlighted that it's the myriad of small things that make progress so slow. To all intents and purposes the car looked finished, but the reality was very different. The heating system was the next thing to put up a fight. Trying to thread the demisting tubes behind the dash, without them fouling the wiper arm mechanism proved tricky. At the other end of the system, the heater control cables really wanted to arc against the base of the cigarette lighter and the backs of the gauges. This took a lot of fiddling around in very confined spaces, accompanied with some inventive language! It also took time.
With the rear bumpers now finally fitted to the car, it was time to finish another job...the exhaust pipes were trimmed to the correct length. Whilst they were OK before, it's little details like this that can set a car apart.
Around this time the better of the two rear light 'V' pieces was cracked. No-one knows how it happened, but happen it did. The other one was sun damaged anyway and had crazed. So now every part of the rear lights was past its best. This proved to be the catalyst to take action and as mentioned previously, I ended up buying replacement parts from Holland. They were expensive, but looked the part.
Back in 2004 I bought new wire wheels from MWS to replace the originals that were still on the car. At that stage I opted for silver painted wheels for two reasons; firstly, I actually thought the originals were painted as they were liberally coated in silver paint, and secondly, painted wheels are stronger than chromed ones and Facels had a habit in period of breaking spokes if driven enthusiastically.
In the intervening years I had discovered that the original wheels had started life chromed and to be honest, the likelihood of me driving the car in a manner that might break spokes had also diminished with the passing of time!
I found this photo for sale on a French website that shows the car on its original chromed wheels...
So, in 2021 I decided to put the car back onto chrome wires. I bought new tyres at the same time as the P4000s on the car were then 17 years old, but had never turned a wheel on the road! What a waste!
This photo doesn't do the wheels justice, but they do give the whole car more presence, blinging it up to match all the stainless trim that festoons the car.
It is now back on the painted wires until the moment it is road ready! The wheels are the same size and offset as an Aston DB6 Mk2, so if anyone has one and could do with a set of silver painted wires, please let me know!
I think there is probably one more update to go, so I'll leave it there for now.
The end of 2019 was a real milestone. By this point, every aspect of the car had received attention, the last rather large item being the rebuild of the supposedly rebuilt engine! Surely, it could only be downhill from here?
Entering 2020 with renewed optimism Ian started to tackle the 'to do' list.
The rear lights were permanently fitted, having been trial fitted several times. This also included fixing an earthing fault that meant the rear lights had a mind of their own!
This picture is from an earlier trial fit.
When I bought the car, the rear light lenses were present, but in awful condition and the 'V' perspex pieces along with the rear wing trims that go over them were missing.
A few years earlier I had managed to buy the wing trims and a non matching pair of 'V' pieces (the ones on the HK500 are different from the preceding models and I had one of each)! Now the car was being restored to a higher standard the light lenses were not up to scratch. Also, once a lit bulb was placed behind them, it was apparent that they had lost most of their colour...the light was pale pink rather than red!
The first step was to see if replacements were available through Amicale Facel Holland, the 'go to' stockists of all things Facel Vega. They were, but at a price that made me wince.
I decided to see what other options were available. The lenses themselves weren't too expensive, it was the 'V' pieces that ramped the cost up. Through a completely different avenue I came across someone locally who had a massive computer programmed 'cutting machine' (CNC machine?). It filled his double garage and was a serious piece of kit!
He told me that cutting some new 'V' pieces would be very simple and, compared to some of the intricate work he was doing, I felt sure it would. The next time I visited the car in Cornwall I brought the pieces back with me and made detailed patterns. Armed with these I went to see my CNC friend and he set his machine up. All we needed now was the correct perspex material. The fact the original was 9.3mm thick did not bode well for a complete match! However, 10mm would do.
To cut a long story short, trying to source dark red, translucent 10mm sheet proved impossible, unless I bought yards and yards of it. Various suppliers promised samples that never turned up and I even found a website that was an aggregator for Chinese production facilities. On there I came across a promising lead, but when I tracked it through, it actually led to Pilkington in the UK. A rather strange phone call then ensued with the people at Pilkington who professed to have no knowledge of working with perspex or similar sheet. As I discovered, you can waste days on the internet trying to track down fairly simple commodities.
At that point, the person's CNC machine seriously malfunctioned and was going to cost thousands to repair. It became obvious that this project was not going to fly, so I just bit the bullet and bought the parts from Holland (but I'm getting ahead of the story)!
The next thing tackled was the speedometer. Somehow the thing had completely screwed itself up. This picture was taken at the NEC Show in 2017. It's a poor photo, but you just might be able to make out that the stationary car is travelling at 120mph according to the speedo. (Sorry the picture has decided to go antipodean!)
The other thing I noticed subsequently was that the odometer had somehow gained 10,000 miles! Here it is in 2010...
and this was taken in 2020.
Maybe the car did actually work and Ian had been using it for Uber duties every evening?
More likely, the speedo was caput as fuel consumption alone would rule out the Uber option!
Ian managed to fix the speedo without having to resort to another trip to Speedy Cables and the inevitable long wait, but could do nothing about the additional 10,000 miles. This is a shame as I have a strong suspicion the 59,900 miles shown originally is the correct mileage for the car.
We are still none the wiser as to how the final digit of the odometer could move, leaving the rest in place. There was possibly something awry back in 2010, as the middle numbers were not aligned.
Having had the speedometer out of the car, it was time to refit all the instruments and then sort out their illumination, along with the four warning lights between the main dials. This was a time consuming job as none of the dash lights had been operational for almost 50 years and exact bulb replacements are no longer available! The same could be said for the interior lights, which should operate both off a switch on the centre console and via the door switches. Most of this wiring had long since disappeared, so had to be completely remade, having first determined how the original wiring loom was routed.
This stage in the process really highlighted that it's the myriad of small things that make progress so slow. To all intents and purposes the car looked finished, but the reality was very different. The heating system was the next thing to put up a fight. Trying to thread the demisting tubes behind the dash, without them fouling the wiper arm mechanism proved tricky. At the other end of the system, the heater control cables really wanted to arc against the base of the cigarette lighter and the backs of the gauges. This took a lot of fiddling around in very confined spaces, accompanied with some inventive language! It also took time.
With the rear bumpers now finally fitted to the car, it was time to finish another job...the exhaust pipes were trimmed to the correct length. Whilst they were OK before, it's little details like this that can set a car apart.
Around this time the better of the two rear light 'V' pieces was cracked. No-one knows how it happened, but happen it did. The other one was sun damaged anyway and had crazed. So now every part of the rear lights was past its best. This proved to be the catalyst to take action and as mentioned previously, I ended up buying replacement parts from Holland. They were expensive, but looked the part.
Back in 2004 I bought new wire wheels from MWS to replace the originals that were still on the car. At that stage I opted for silver painted wheels for two reasons; firstly, I actually thought the originals were painted as they were liberally coated in silver paint, and secondly, painted wheels are stronger than chromed ones and Facels had a habit in period of breaking spokes if driven enthusiastically.
In the intervening years I had discovered that the original wheels had started life chromed and to be honest, the likelihood of me driving the car in a manner that might break spokes had also diminished with the passing of time!
I found this photo for sale on a French website that shows the car on its original chromed wheels...
So, in 2021 I decided to put the car back onto chrome wires. I bought new tyres at the same time as the P4000s on the car were then 17 years old, but had never turned a wheel on the road! What a waste!
This photo doesn't do the wheels justice, but they do give the whole car more presence, blinging it up to match all the stainless trim that festoons the car.
It is now back on the painted wires until the moment it is road ready! The wheels are the same size and offset as an Aston DB6 Mk2, so if anyone has one and could do with a set of silver painted wires, please let me know!
I think there is probably one more update to go, so I'll leave it there for now.
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