The Concours d'LeMons, held on the grassy grounds of the Seaside City Hall on Saturday, August 17, has been promoted as a kind of Anti Pebble Beach Concours. It has annually bestowed an award upon the winner of Worst in Show, which is not something you're likely to see on what is reverently called The Lawn at Pebble. We avoided The Lawn this year, because it's gotten pricey, and because we suspected we might find some good stories elsewhere...
Like, for example, this 1963 Facel III, which was built when the Parisian firm was on the ropes, after a near-knockout punch administered by their attempt to built a more affordable, all-French companion car to their Chrysler V8-engined luxury GTs. The new compact GT, called the Facellia, appeared in fall of 1959 at the Paris Salon, and was powered by a DOHC, 1.65 liter inline four built by the Pont-a-Mousson gearbox firm, which built the 4-speed manual gearboxes for the big Facel-Vega FV series, the HK-500 and a very few Chrysler 300s. What went wrong? Plenty, with crankshafts flexing owing to support from only 2 bearings, camshafts insufficiently supported (2 bearings again), overheating, burnt pistons and noise. And even when running the engine offered inferior performance compared with an Alfa, for example. Facellia production stopped in '63, when the car was quietly re-engined with a famously reliable Volvo B-18 and renamed Facel III. Our subject car is the best (and, well, only) example we've seen. More about that later on...
This nicely-restored 1939 Citroen 11 Traction Avant was displayed as a candidate for Worst in Show because it was one of those cars produced in England at Citroen's Slough assembly plant during the 4 decades it operated (1926-'66). Thus, it is equipped (or afflicted) with an English electrical system.
But, along with right-hand drive, that English assembly means attractive interior wood trim, something the French versions lacked.
Also, we need to point out that Citroen's Traction Avant series, the world's first mass-produced front-wheel drive car, had a pretty good reputation for reliability and durability. Just ask the French gangsters who adopted it, and the gendarmerie who chased 'em in their own Traction Avant police cars. The 1954 example below, built 20 years after the Traction's launch, warns of its English electricals, and is proposed as a Worst in Show candidate because of its somewhat tatty condition. Which brings us to the thorny, philosophical issue of whether lax maintenance can make a car a candidate for lemonhood. We'll ponder that as we attempt to sort out the imposters from the Real Lemons...
The 1955 Solyto below was made by the New Map company, which, despite its name, was French. The sub-400 lb. delivery vehicle seemed to aspire to Worst in Show status by way of its oddity (3 wheels, 1 cylinder 2-stroke engine, 4.5 hp from 125 cc) and somewhat scruffy condition. We thought it qualified for sincere consideration, and hoped its owner had not driven it all the way from its home in Claremont, CA, a distance of 345 miles...
Before leaving the Unmitigated Gaul section we're going to return to that Facel III, not just because it's attractive, but because of the stories attached to it. The car has been in the same family since new, and owner Dana Shatts told me his dad had bought it when working for Hughes Aircraft in France. It came back to the Los Angeles area when his dad was reassigned, and Dana drove the car through college, eventually drove it to his wedding, and finally completed a full restoration over a decade ago. The Facel III gets driven regularly, and now has over 280,000 km on the clock...
...which is no big achievement for a Volvo B18 engine. Recall that the Facel III was basically a Facellia with the troublesome twin-cam Pont-a-Mousson engine replaced with the Volvo. At the same time, special vertical Facellia tail lights were replaced with units that Dana says are from a Dodge Dart (see above). And the well-instrumented Facel dash from the Facellia received the much-admired wood grain finish shared with the big Chrysler-engined Facels. As on those cars, this is wood grain artfully painted onto a metal surface...
The Volvo B-18 easily fits into the space originally reserved for Facel's twin-cam four...
Facel tried a number of fixes on their twin-cam engine, including adjusting the fuel / air mix to avoid burnt pistons, improving cooling, and even experimenting with twin-plug heads, before abandoning it. In giving up on the homegrown engine, Facel gave up a bit of glamor under the hood, as evidenced by the restored example below. One of Dana's friends was at the LeMons show, and noted that he had rebuilt the original twin-cam engine in his own Facellia twice before giving up and putting a Volvo in the engine bay.
The original Facellia was offered in 2+2 coupe form like the one below, a 4-passenger like Dana's green Facel III, and a cabriolet that appeared in the Godard film "Weekend"...
It was a handsome thing, presaging the elegant lines of the big Facel II (below) that would appear for 1962. Road & Track drove one of these early Facellia coupes and was impressed, possibly because the engine didn't quit during their time with it. For the disc-braked Facel II, the company stayed with Chrysler as an engine supplier, and the car appeared with the 383. Ringo Starr bought a RHD version, and other Facel-Vega clients included Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, and a flock of Saudi princes. Still, the company never escaped the shadow, and the warranty claims, from their failed Facellia. A receiver was appointed, and a reconstituted Facel under the aegis of something called SFERMA (the French love their acronyms) offered, along with Facels II and III, a Facel VI with an Austin six downsized to 2.5 liters to dodge French taxes. In the end, only around 170 to 180 specimens of the gorgeous (and reliable) Facel II found homes before production of all Facel-Vegas ended in 1964. A few of the last cars featured the 413 V8.
The exhibits were loosely divided up into sections relating to country of origin, with not always uplifting commentary reflected in the display titles. This 1994 Saab 9000 Aero is a candidate for Forgotten Classic status. A product of Italdesign Giugiaro's corporate period, it was part of a shared chassis program that included the similar-looking Fiat Chroma, Lancia Thema, and Alfa Romeo 164, the latter with a different body design from Pininfarina. Still, savings on chassis design and production on the transverse-engined 9000 didn't keep corporate wolves away from the door for long; GM bought 50% of Saab in 1989. We question its place in the lemon lineup, however; the solidly-built 9000 was known for its bulletproof, twin-cam inline four, and many Saab enthusiasts rated it the best Saab ever.
Volvo's 780 coupe, a joint project with Italy's Bertone, was built in over 8,500 examples from model years 1986 through 1991. Engine offerings included a 90 degree V6 shared with Peugeot and Renault, and later on, Volvo's turbo inline four. Bertone styling offers the mixed blessing of thematic similarity to other Volvos, combined with relatively elusive parts, as the car shares no panels and almost no trim with Volvo's 700 series sedans. Too reliable to be a lemon, and too nicely-presented to be a clunker...
This 2nd generation Toyota Prius was parked next to a Seventies Corolla to underline its appliance status...
...but it was at the show for a good cause. Habitat for Humanity will now accept donations of automobiles to finance their construction of affordable homes. The good news is that your car need not be a lemon to qualify for the program. So if you're getting bored with your Maserati Bora, here's something to think about.
Some cars were at Concours d'LeMons were also at Thursday's Little Car Show*. This Fiat 600 acquired some labels noting quirks and problem areas before moving on to compete at LeMons, though. One feature noted is the provision of rear-hinged "suicide" doors from 1955 until 1965. Despite drawbacks like a rear-mounted radiator, the 600 had a long production life ending in 1969.
The Fiat 124 below arrived at the show under its own power, despite having so many rust holes that the owner felt it gave the car superleggera status. According to some historians, the 124's propensity to rust was enhanced by a deal Fiat made with the Russian government, in which Russia traded high sulfur-content steel for a new Lada manufacturing plant at Stavropol (later named Togliatti after the Italian Communist leader) on the Volga. The Ladas the plant built looked suspiciously like this Fiat 124. On the plus side though, the 124 was fun to drive, especially the twin-cam sport coupes and convertibles. Verdict: eligible for Real Lemon status only because of that rust issue.
The Land of Misfit Cars was reserved for display of products by America's independents. Here's an M-Series Studebaker pickup. The M-Series was made from 1941-'47, in that period before pickups were a lifestyle statement. Back then, they were marketed to farmers, and there were more family farms. This M-Series is friendly looking, like it might follow you home if you whistled...
The "step-down" Hudson revived the company's fortunes when introduced for 1948. As if this 1950 Commodore coupe didn't already look low enough, someone has done a tidy and skillful job of chopping the top. Hudsons were too sturdy and reliable to qualify as lemons, and this one is too nice to be a misfit. That category would apply to the boxy compact Hudson Jet, the opposite of the sleek step-downs, and the car that doomed Hudson as an independent company.
American Motors, the company formed when Hudson merged with Nash, offered the Pacer from 1975 through '80. It was marketed as the Wide Small Car. On the 100 inch wheelbase of the first Rambler American, it was a whopping 77.3 inches wide. The public was not clamoring for a wide small car, though, and Pacer appeared before the SUV boom would show that the key to AMC's future was probably their Jeep division. Verdict: A true misfit.
There was a section unkindly titled Rust Belt American Junk, but it was hard to argue against inclusion of the Ford Pinto / Mercury Bobcat twins. The blue example below is a Bobcat, which, despite its shiny condition, once shared the notorious exploding fuel tank threat with the Pinto. After a 1978 lawsuit exposed an internal Ford memo that suggested it would be more cost-effective to pay damage claims than fix the problem, Ford agreed to recall 1.5 million Pintos and Bobcats and equip them with tank shields and revised fuel fillers. They also paid out $125 million in punitive damages. Compared with the sheer greed and cynicism reflected in that case, Ford's decisions to go ahead with the '58 Edsel (center) and to graft fins onto the relatively clean-looking '56 Lincoln to make the '57 model (right) look like mere foolishness.
What does one do about a disappointing car in concours condition? One shines it up and brings it to a concours. This 1958 Edsel Ranger hardtop was a snapshot of the mistakes made by Ford management, but it was a charmer. Ford had decided to enter the crowded medium price field (where they already had Mercury) with a car aimed at junior executives. Somehow they'd failed to notice that few people aspired to be a junior executive, or a junior anything. Edsel's Ranger and Pacer lines were based on Ford body shells, while annoyed Mercury dealers noted that the senior Corsair and Citation lines were based on Mercury shells.
Along with needing to sort through a confusing profusion of models in 4 series, potential Edsel customers had to deal with indifferent construction quality as well as the Teletouch automatic transmission control with its hub-mounted buttons too close to the horn, and control wires routed too close to the exhaust. As if those issues weren't enough, the Edsel was launched in a recession.
1959 Edsel offerings shrank to 2 lines on the shorter and narrower Ford chassis, and by the 1960 model year the Edsel was down to the Ranger line, basically a '60 Ford with different tail lights and a twin grille cribbed from a '59 Pontiac. The '60 Ford was enormous, though, so nobody could accuse the Edsel of being downsized. Car buyers sensed that the Edsel seemed to have no reason for being, and production ended after November 1959. Ford had guessed there might be a future in compact cars, and introduced a stretched Falcon called the Comet in March 1960. It had been planned originally as part of the Edsel line...
This '70 Caddy Eldorado below was remodeled in the disco era with faux-traditional radiator grille, even goofier fake Lucas headlights, and fake trunk-mounted spare. Though the original design from '67 was oversized and a glutton for fuel, it was a fairly competent, belated response by GM Styling to Elwood Engel's '61 Continental. The glitzy mods, though in poor taste, couldn't be blamed on GM, and so we passed on this Eldo for Worst in Show...
Inevitably, there were some Chevy Vegas at the Concours d'LeMons. The car introduced for 1971 was famously a lemon, sabotaged by sleeveless aluminum engine blocks with cast iron heads, and cost-cutting measures like deletion of fender liners that resulted in cars starting to rust on dealer lots. Oh, and rear axles coming adrift, ruptured fuel tanks, and so on. GM recalled half a million Vegas in 1972.
The 1975 launch of the Cosworth Vega, with aluminum twin-cam 16-valve head, was too late to rebuild the car's reputation. In thinking about the award for our fave exhibit, though, we keep coming back to that Facel III. The Facel III was an attempt to rebuild Facel's reputation (and finances) after the damage done by its Facellia predecessor. It that way the Facel III has something in common with the Cosworth Vega. But, as we pointed out to Facel owners at the show, the Chevy Vega never bankrupted GM. In creating the little sister car to their big GT, the Facel Vega team bet everything on their new engine design (somewhat presaging the bet Chevy would place on their own Vega), and it took down the whole company when it failed.
Facel-Vega, then, deserves some kind of award for making tasty lemonade out of a Real Lemon with their Facel III. 625 of them found homes in 1963 and '64, when the sinking little company desperately needed sales. The Facel III turned to be a sweet handler after all, and as reliable as its Chrysler-powered big brothers. Also, we decided, it provided the most entertaining tale of misadventure at the Concours d'LeMons.
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*Footnote:
"A Big Show of Little Cars in Pacific Grove" appeared on August 25, 2024.
Photo Credits:
All photos are by the author, except for the following shots:
Facel-Vega Facellia engine: Wikimedia
Facel-Vega Facellia F2 coupe: fastestlaps.com
Facel II: pendine.com
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