Packard Mayfair
About Packard Mayfair
This car describes the early medium-priced hardtop coupes produced by Packard between 1951 to 1953. The car was built on a junior body. It represented one of Packard’s last-ditch attempts to compete with General Motors Buick, Chrysler Imperial, and General Motors Cadillac that were selling fast in this category within that period. In 1954, Mayfair hardtops were replaced by the Pacific. This car got a senior status by having a full senior stream coupled with the 359 c.i. engine that was added to the mix. The car was sold at a range of $3200 to $3,400 which meant that it was competing with the better designed Chrysler, Mercury, and Buick that were in the same price range instead of the Lincoln, Cadillac, and Imperial that it set out to compete against. Thus, the car failed to make any substantial impact or improved the standards of Packard as a luxury vehicle.
However, it was not a bad car by any right. It has several deluxe components, and its pillarless window line further gave it the look of a sporty Packard. The name too was very suitable as it conjured images of fashion and style and the car has a smoothly integrated styling that made it far better than rivals like the DeSoto Sportsman and Hudson Hollywood.
The interior of the Mayfair lived up to the standards of a hardtop as it efficiently and stylishly combined leather, vinyl, and nylon, with colour shades that matched the interior with the exterior. It also featured a headliner made of chrome-plated pseudo-convertible top bows and full carpets. The Mayfair was a perfectly okay car as long as it is not compared with the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. For whatever reason, it is difficult to determine how many of these cars were sold because Packard didn’t release production figures, but it had poor sales. The analysis shows about 1258 units were sold in 1951 and 3959 sold in 1952. The numbers are not completely accurate. However, the production figures in 1953 were 5150 units which showed a steady improvement. This rise is likely because the 1953 model looks more of a senior than a junior model, and the price did not increase.
The taillights of this car are housed in a chrome fin-like housing, and the body sides had full-length bright metal strips. There were six choices of leather, nylon or leather-and-nylon to enrich the interior and it had features such as power seat, power steering, Easamatic power brakes, electric antenna, hydraulic windows, air conditioning, underseat heater, and three-way radio. It also had the options of coming with a continental exterior spare with a wire or disc wheel and chrome wire wheels.