Facel Vega FV / HK500 History

The first Facel Vega customer car was delivered in March 1955, bodied as a two-door pillarless hardtop on a steel platform of Daninos's own design and powered by a 4.5-litre DeSoto Hemi V8 producing around 180 hp. The series went through rapid annual evolution — FV1 (4.8 L), FV2 (panoramic windshield), FV2B (5.4 L, 285 hp), FV3/FV3B, and FV4 (5.8 L, 325 hp) — before the FVS designation was adopted for US export cars from 1956. In total, 357 FVs and FVSs were built across those years.

For 1959 Facel renamed and refined the range as the HK500, fitting a 5.8-litre then 6.3-litre Chrysler 'Typhoon' V8 producing up to 360 hp, giving the car a verified top speed of around 147 mph (237 km/h). Four-wheel Dunlop disc brakes were adopted as standard. The HK500 was arguably the fastest four-seat car in the world at the time, and 489 examples were built before production ended in 1961 to make way for the Facel II.

The FV/HK500 line attracted an extraordinary clientele: racing driver Stirling Moss drove his HK500 between circuits; Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Dean Martin, Ringo Starr, and Ava Gardner all owned Facel Vegas. Tragically, Nobel laureate Albert Camus was killed on 4 January 1960 when French publisher Michel Gallimard lost control of his FV2 near Sens — an event that shadowed the marque's reputation even as the HK500 represented its commercial and critical peak.