Jean Daninos came up with the idea of a smaller Facel Vega to compete against other sports cars such as Alfa Romeo, and this would take Facel Vega into mass production. The Facellia was first presented in 1959 and went into production at the end of that year. Facel Vega had rubbed the French government up the wrong way with its use of American engines for its larger V8 cars and so searched around for a French engine for their new smaller sports cars. With no suitable engines available Carlo Marchetti, formerly of Talbot, assisted by Paul Cavalier Chairman of Pont­a­Mousson designed a dohc 1,647cc 4-cylinder engine. With only two bearings for the camshaft, the engine was troublesome and burned pistons. Warranty claims mounted up, and Jean Daninos was forced to resign. Facel Vega brought in Andre Belin and he got engineers Charles Deutsch and Jean Bertin to resolve some of the design flaws for the Facellia F2. Sales were poor, and in 1963 developed the Facellia F2 into the Facel III which used a Volvo engine.