1953 Packard Mayfair Walkaround

General Motors' hardtop coupes appeared during model year 1949 on Cadillacs, Buicks and Oldsmobiles.   But Packard did not market one until 1951, because that was the model year when its entire line was redesigned.  Packard's previous body design did not permit the addition of B-pillarless styling, but the new design did.

Packard's hardtop was built on its 122-inch (3099 mm) 250 series structure.  Senior Packards had wheelbases of 127 inches (3226 mm), so the shorter, lighter hardtops had sportier performance than they might have had otherwise.

For model years 1951-1953 Packard hardtop coupes were named "Mayfair" after London's posh district east of Hyde Park.  I confess that, until I became familiar with London, the name Mayfair puzzled me, a middle-class kid from Seattle.  Model names such as Bel Air, Malibu, Newport and Saratoga were of upper-crust USA places I'd heard of.  Monaco, Riviera and such were fancy European places I also knew about.  But Mayfair?   Clearly, I was never the target in Packard's marketing sights, being unaware of Mayfair.

I think the Mayfair was an attractive car, a few details aside, as will be discussed in image captions below.

Gallery

1952 Packard Mayfair - car-for-sale photo
1951 and 1952 Mayfairs were essentially identical.  There was a mild facelift for 1953 that resulted in a cleaner, less-fussy grille design and a longer chrome strip on the side.

1953 Packard Mayfair - car-for-sale photo set
Those changes can be noted here.

My post "John Reinhard's Complaint" deals with Packard styling director's belief that the new 1951 design would have been better if the lower body were an inch (25.4 mm) or so less tall.  As I mentioned in that post, I disagree with his assessment.

The backlight window has three segments, a limitation related to glass forming technology.  However, some other 1953 cars were getting wide, one-piece backlights.  Packard complied in 1954.

The large, subtly-shaped trunk lid is contrasted by highly detailed peripheral items.  This compositional contrast is a legitimate tactic, exemplified by Spanish Colonial church architecture featuring large, clean areas along with tightly detailed areas such as around and above the entry doors.

Then there are those three accent details on the aft fender.  Buick gained its (in)famous "portholes" in 1949, and variations continued for many years off and on as a visual brand identifier.  Apparently Packard wanted to do the same thing.  But popularly, they were called "bottle cap openers."  That's not something an upscale car line needed to be associated with.  The openers were discarded for 1954.

Those chrome tail finlets on the rear fenders were added for 1953.

An attractive (but not exciting) design.  Getting rid of the bottle cap openers and perhaps also the tail finlets would have improved appearance.

1954 Packard Pacific - car-for-sale photo
The next model year saw the caps eliminated, at least.

Those "teeth" in the 1951-52 grilles are gone.  The revised grille is massive (as was expected in those days), but it works well with the rest of the car's design while retaining Packard's traditional upper grille framing style.

The dashboard.