[5] The Mayfair, Packard's first hardtop offering, was created for the 1951 model year in order to keep in competition with the Oldsmobile 98 Holiday, Buick Roadmaster Riviera, Lincoln Capri and Chrysler New Yorker Newport hardtop coupes.

When the hardtop was renamed as the Pacific, Packard associated the model with its senior level, personal luxury car offering, the Caribbean.

[1] The Pacific was distinguished by high levels of interior trim: for instance, leather upholstery was provided, and the cars' interior headliners were ornamented with chrome strips intended to suggest a convertible top.

The cars were also given innovative exterior color schemes; most were given two-tone paint jobs (for example: "Carnation" (white) and "Amethyst" (lavender)), which were considered fashionable at the time.

Production was hampered by the sale of Briggs Manufacturing Company who had supplied bodywork to Packard beginning in 1941.