Camus's Death and a Rare French Sports Car

Albert Camus died 50 years ago today in a car accident in France.

Camus was 46 when he died in a crash while returning to Paris from Provence after the holidays on Jan. 4, 1960, in a car driven by his friend and publisher Michel Gallimard.

In the small town of Villeblevin, Gallimard lost control of the car, and Camus was killed. Gallimard was injured and died a few days later. Camus had with him a ticket for the train he had originally planned to ride and the manuscript of his last book.

Camus, known for his ideas of the absurd, is supposed to have said that the most absurd way to die would be in a car crash.

Today, there is a monument in Villeblevin to Camus. The bronze plaque on the monument reads: “From the Yonne area’s local council, in tribute to the writer Albert Camus who was watched over in the Villeblevin town hall in the night of 4 January – 5 January 1960.”

Only the wealthy, like Michel Gallimard, a publishing heir, were able to afford the Facel Vega, the unusual French competitor to the Mercedes SL or Aston Martin DB5. It was created by Jean C. Daninos, an industrialist who operated the metal stamping company Facel (the acronym for Forges et Ateliers de Construction d’Eure et de Loire, or Factory and Construction Shop of Eure and Loire).

Daninos began his business in the late 1930s. After the Second World War, Facel stamped out pieces for Simcas and other smaller French auto companies. But Daninos lamented the loss of great French sporting marques, like Bugatti or Delahaye, and conceived his own car. He drew the body lines himself, and adopted Chrysler Hemi engines to power the Vega. At first, Daninos used DeSoto engines, but by 1957 he had upgraded to the powerful 5.8 Hemi from Chrysler’s 300.

The Facel Vega was first shown to the public at the Paris auto show in 1954. Sometimes compared to a DB5, sometimes to a Thunderbird, the Facel Vega enjoyed sales among celebrities who wanted to be seen in something a little more exotic. Owners of Vegas and other Facel models included Joan Fontaine, Ringo Starr, Tony Curtis, Ava Gardner, Danny Kaye, the king of Morocco and various Saudi princes.

Facel produced only about 200 cars a year, and a few were brought to the United States by Max Hoffman in New York. Facel produced several models modified from the basic Vega. The company shrewdly lent one of them, an HK500, to the racer Stirling Moss. Mr. Moss found the HK500, with its automatic transmission and power steering, convenient for travel from race to race and made sure to praise the car in public. It transported him, he declared, “not only in silence and comfort, but also in safety.”