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Showing posts from September, 2023

The French-Italian connection History of the Bentley Cresta MK VI

  What this article is about While reading up about the Facel Vega for my previous blog, I came across the Bentley Crest. It is a coach-built car designed by Pininfarina, the famous Italian design house and built-in collaboration with a French company called Facel Vega. This luxury coupe has a French-Italian connection and is a car that holds a lot of history behind it.   The car and its humble beginnings The year is 1946 and most of Europe is coming out of a dark time, the World War II and Hitler’s work. Italy then led by Mussolini was a strong nation and had come under the watch of the league of nations and was sanctioned for their actions of invading Abyssinia in 1936. Italy’s friendship with Great Britain and France was cut off and they instead entered a pact with Nazi Germany on October 25 th 1936, known as the Rome-Berlin Axis based on a speech given by Mussolini a week after signing the pact.   Axis Alliance (left  Mussolini and right Hitler)  What got other countries

When the French built a true luxury cruiser- History of the Facel Vega

This article is going to cover the details about the Facel Vega as a brand in general and not any specific model. Whilst reading up about coach built cars from the 50's and 60's I managed to come across the Facel Vega brand. The Facel Vega brand really intrigued me as a car enthusiast and got me digging deeper. what your going to read in this article is a culmination of all the interesting facts that I came across.   History behind Facel Vega The Facel Vega is a car company that blends American muscle with French opulence and luxury. Facel is a company that was born as a division of Bronzavia, a French aeronautics company present to date, supplying sheet and metal, mechanically welded assemblies for aeronautics.  The parent company behind Facel  The founding figure behind the whole operation was Jean Daninos, he was the one responsible for Forges et Ateliers de Construction d'Eure-et-Loir , or (Facel) in 1939. They were first producing machine tools for the aircraft industr