(first posted 11/24/2011) In 1620, the Mayflower carried 102 Puritans from England to America to escape religious persecution. A year later they celebrated their survival and a good harvest with the first Thanksgiving feast. We celebrate its anniversary today.
In 1949 another Mayflower landed in America, sent to bring home Yankee dollars to an impoverished postwar Britain. Sadly, the Triumph Mayflower did not find the same success.
In 1946, Standard-Triumph introduced the large Triumph Renown sedan, an expensive coachbuilt luxury car. The Renown was meant as a smaller 108 inch wheelbase version of the 120-inch Bentley Mark VI. Managing director Sir John Black was certain its “razor edge” faux-Rolls Royce look would work on an upscale small car, that would be especially appealing to Americans. (And you thought this sort of thing started with the Cimarron.) Thus the Triumph Mayflower was born in 1949, on an 84 inch wheelbase. Compare this Mayflower with that yellow Spitfire next to it. Spitfire’s wheelbase is only 1 inch less.
It’s hard to get a sense of the tiny scale of this car in photos, so I’ve created a visual aid. This 1950s VW is shown at the same scale as the Mayflower. Compare its 84 inch wheelbase with the VW’s 94.5: the Triumph’s wheelbase is a full ten inches shorter. All that luxurious overhang does make it nearly as long as the Bug. Just imagine its ride and handling. This is the rare drophead version, only ten made. With top up, it offers complete privacy to whoever can fit between those rear wheel wells.
Square-on side views of the Mayflower are rare. Maybe because neither side is its best side. Spend some time taking in these classic lines. Compare the car above the beltline with the car below. See how the rear wheels fall between the B and C pillars. How each window’s frame looks different. How the drip rail compares with the line of the top.
James May wrote in his Telegraph column, “I’m pretty confident in saying that the ugliest car ever to sneak off a sketch pad when no one with taste or discretion was looking was the 1949 Triumph Mayflower. The Ford Edsel had an unfortunate nose, and the AMC Pacer had an unfortunate backside. But the Mayflower was ugly to its roots. Look at it, if you can bear to. Its details are ugly, its overall proportions are ugly, its very concept – as a car to appeal to Americans who believed they were directly descended from the Pilgrim Fathers – makes one shudder.”
It was said to be a roomy package for its size, thanks to its boxy shape. Just the thing for a country squire’s picnic luncheon out on the estate.
Looks to have a nicely upholstered interior. Lots of glass in those tall frames. I couldn’t find any shots of the rear seat. Maybe it’s too narrow and cramped for photography. Those Brits, always going on picnics!
“The body is built integral with a rigid pressed steel frame of unusual design, cleverly buttressed to give great strength without undue weight.” In other words, a unit body. “Rust-proofed by the “Bonderizing” process.”
They took their pre-war Standard 10 flathead four, gave it an aluminum head and installed a Solex carb. 1247 cc developed 38 hp at 4200 rpm. Three on the tree. Top speed 63 mph, 0 to 50 in 26.6 seconds. 24 US mpg.
A Mayflower historian’s website is chock full of facts and photos. He reports: “If you want rapid acceleration, speed and sure-footed road holding then the Mayflower is not for you!” “The body roll can be quite dramatic if you approach a corner at speed. This can catch out the novice Mayflower driver. However, once experienced this is never forgotten or repeated!”
Standard-Triumph of Australia built a Mayflower coupe utility. Why would you take a miniature Rolls and turn it into a pickup? They used UK knockdown kits, modified the bodywork with a timber bed, and built 150 of them. Looks like the hood is longer than the bed. How many sheep can you carry back there?
Triumph Mayflower sold for $1,695 in the US. For comparison, the top-of-the-line 1950 Ford V8 Crestliner sedan sold for $1,711. Which would you choose? Right. Out of 35,000 Mayflowers built from 1950-53, only 1,000 came across to the States. Definitely not the hit Sir John predicted.
Standard-Triumph followed the Mayflower with the much more conventional Standard Eight and Standard Ten in 1953. Through 1960 they sold 308,000 of these. So much for “razor edge” styling.
Mayflower’s unique size and shape did lend itself to custom builders. This mysterious car, named “Ruby”, is said to be somewhere in western North America.
So in other words, Plymouth was not nearly as hospitable towards the Mayflower in 1949 as in 1620 🙂
That two tone brown and beige one is located in BC, Canada. Very nicely restored. I’m not sure if the two tone paint is original but seems to tone down the styling a bit. It has a Herald/Spitfire engine swapped in to make it much more usable than the flat head one.
Seems like a great companion for a Beetle that has recieved the fake Rolls treatment.
Mike, thanks for this delicious turkey you’ve shared with us. I’ve been aware of the Mayflower since childhood, but never really read a proper take on it. You more than did it justice. Always reminded me of an amusement park ride car. Now what’s for dessert?
These things keep appearing on trademe in hardly used barn found condition hardly surprising once you sobered up after the buying event its unlikely youd want to be seen in one.The original Landrover was 80 inch wheel base but that was so it could climb over stuff this is just stupid.
Amen to that Bryce. I find these to be the ugliest cars ever. Just thinking about them makes me shudder…
No way – this was a GREAT car. I am descended from a man who came on the Mayflower but died that first hard winter. My father served in the American Army for 34 years. Mom got hit head on in a 1949 Ford convertible by a German truck on the autobahn between Augsburg and Munich in 1954. Driver was drunk, left his daughter to die in the wreck. The Ford slid into the ditch but the engine block saved my mother. The car we replaced it with was a black Mayflower which was later sold in NYC as soon as we got back. But before that it hauled them, my sister and I and our boxer with all our luggage across the Vosges Mtns in eastern France then down to Garmisch for Christmas. With just a few blankets and hot water bottles stuffed under the hood for a while it started right up after sitting out in 25 below 0 degrees f. weather all night. It wasn’t designed to look like a cheap race car or futuristic. That baby hauled ass and I’d love to have it again!
your definition of hauled ass is suspect. nobody would deign to doubt or impugn your pleasant memories associated with the car.
Awwww, it’s kinda cute! I’d be thankful for one, especially if the picnic basket was included. Thanks for the great write-up!
It is a shopping basket, containing groceries. You would not consume a tin of Golden Syrup on a picnic.
I’m not surprised that so many photos of this unfortunate vehicle were taken at car shows. Such a combination of spectacular ugliness and mechanical fecklessness practically guarantees the survival of little-used examples in the same mold as uncomfortable thus rarely-used parlor chairs.
The recently-replaced third generation Nissan Micra has always reminded me of this car, which is probably why I hated the Micra so much. I never realised they had inflicted the Mayfower on you poor unfortunate Americans. The larger Renown was a beautiful car – I still see one sometimes, but I haven’t seen a Mayflower for 50 years or so , and then only black 2-door ones.
In the early 1980s I saw one of these in the underground parking garage of an apartment building in Pasadena, California. I knew what it was, but hadn’t thought I would ever actually see one. It was parked so that I could walk around it, which I did. I can tell you, therefore, that photos do not adequately depict the appalling proportions of this car. An unpleasant cartoon.
Triumph Mayflower: Part of a grand tradition of awkward, ill-proportioned, underpowered vehicles. Get noticed (for the wrong reasons) in a Triumph!
The ads should have had this as their tagline. If only there was truth in advertising.
Mr Magoo could have been their spokesman
I’m guessing he did the styling.
I cant wait for the apologists to start defending this wallflower
Mayflower dude
Turkey indeed. I can maybe understand its concept in places where roads are narrow and spaces are tight, people might want classy looking vehicle but can’t really use the big ones. But for America? the place where roads are wide and space is plentiful? Plus it is ugly. Looks like someone shrunk a bigger car but the proportions did not scale properly. The concept is sound, a smaller, more affordable Rolls Royce/Bentley lookalike, but do they have to be that small? Shorter wheelbase than a Beetle… WTF were they thinking?
Nice write-up Mike. It may be cute with a picnic basket etc but only for destinations that are within walking distance!
I was wondering if you were going to mention the ute version, I have seen one of these (at a show of course), and had a photo online until the hosting site went away, must get them back up one day.
I might be the only one, but I kind of like these. Looks like a baby Rolls Royce Silver Dawn. I have a Car Collector magazine from the ’70s with a detailed article on the Mayflower, otherwise I would never have heard of it. Its replacement seen above, the Triumph Standard, looks a lot like a ’51 Ford Consul/Zephyr.
Backseat looks like a very small couch with wheel wells acting as arm rests complete with tiny little elbow pads on the top. They advertised that the wide opening front doors offered plenty of room to get back there….yeah, like my 6’4″ frame would fit in that thing. Maybe the pilgrims were munchkins. I bet my 270 pounds would bottom out that rear axle as soon as I squeezed in and the top speed would rop to about 40mph with a tailwind goin downhill. Reminds me of a movie with Wilt Chamberlin ripping the front seat out of a compact so he could sit in the back and drive.
That was Bubba Smith in Police Academy. The car was a circa ’75 Honda Civic. Lots of AMC Matador police cars in that movie too.
Count me as one who’s take is it’s so ugly its cute. I love the custom one pictured a very nice streamliner take that works with some of the lines of the car and eliminated many of the factory ones that clashed with what was left. .
I won’t defend the Mayflower- especially the stupidity of Standard-Triumph for thinking it would be a hit in the US. Clearly none of the execs who made that decision had ever even been, let alone driven in the USA, otherwise they would realize that a 30hp sidevalve engined contraption would be next to useless there.
One of the motoring journalists at Earls Court, upon its unveiling was standing next to a particularly posh woman, overhearing her sum up the little car in that oh-so-English way: “Oh, how perfectly bloody!”
However, in spite of the fact that it should never have been born in the first place, the one saving grace of the Mayflower is its superior build quality. Probably to its owners chagrin when wishing the damn thing would die so they could get a less embarrassing car, these things never did. Perhaps that’s why they have such a high survival rate in the UK- people hid their shame in their garage or barn, only to be discovered decades later after the death of their owner.
I’ve seen some horribly neglected examples, and the lack of rust was astounding. Those ill-proportioned body panels were immune to rust, and the frame seemed to have been made of forged I-beams. The interior was good quality leather, and quite roomy to boot, due to its Mercedes A-class style uprightness.
The Mayflower was priced as a junior luxury car, and certainly ANYONE in postwar England who could afford a new car was quite well off. I suppose too that this car reflected the snobbishness and class-climbing of the middle classes in the UK at the time. One can just picture Hyacinth Bucket’s mother demanding one of these to demonstrate her social status. It really is the spiritual ancestor to other pretend-posh cars like the Vanden Plas Allegro.
I suppose with the British class system in mind, a pretend Rolls Royce made sense. But it wasn’t only the size that was inappropriate for American roads, it was also that the American class system was entirely different. If you drove this to church in Kansas City, people wouldn’t mistake you for the aristocracy, but would take up a collection or launch a bake sale to help you raise the cash to buy a proper car. Or they might just telephone Dr Walter Freeman to make an appointment for you to have him perform his procedure.
The question we need to ask, though is this: Was the world a better place back when motoring executives thought they knew what the customer wanted and built it anyway, or now when cars are designed to the lowest common denominator of a focus group participant?
I would argue that the outcome of both can be similar. From the first camp, we have the Triumph Mayflower. From the other, the Pontiac Aztek.
Quite ironic that they are so ugly even rust is repelled
That’s a nice point. I think we’re better off with the old hit or miss. Triumph built the Mayflower, but then they built the TR2. In both cases brimming over with more character and personality than any of the corporate focus-grouped blobs.
Triumph actually built some nice cars well styled fairly durable good to drive the TRs the 2000/2500 series even the Stag though it was a lemon mechanicly but those all rusted.
how dare you all ,you ignorant rable the triumph mayflower is a fine upstanding..motorcar,lol..its elegant and the hight of good taste and good manners,lol, lol
My Dad had one of these.
I was too young at the time to have any memory of it.
Soooooo grateful for that.
Sorry Dad.
Found an old photograph of his car. Think that is my Mother in the back seat there. It’s life ended when it caught fire and nobody could be bothered to put it out; apparently.
There was another car around about the same time which also was an absolute failier that was the austina90atlantic built from 49 to 53 an Austin version of an American car powered by the first of the farmhouse b series engines ,it looked like a dodgem car and unsurprisingly the Americans didn’t want it they wanted mg,s triumph roadsters british sports cars,the a90 is a very rare car now and worth considerable money great if you can find one,lol
The engine in the Atlantic was derived from the immediate-postwar Austin Sixteen, and at 2660cc went on to power the Austin-Healey 100 (in much-tuned form).
The B-series you’re thinking of is much smaller, and started off at 1200cc in the ’47-50 Austin A40. The serious Austin guys will say that’s not a B-series, but to a casual glance it sure looks like one.
You know wot the mayflower is a hideousness and ridicules car a motoring joke rarely ….but there’s something endearing about this car….I think we all have a soft spot for such a hopeless underdog
Yep. I remember seeing one as a kid. I thought it was just my size, Now that I think about it, it was always parked in the same spot – I never saw it moving!
Way cool. Just love the Rolls Royce look and the razor edge styling. Can`t be mistaken for anything but British. I can picture a two tome yellow and black one with leather. I`ll take one over a VW anyday.
My father told me a story about working on one- the engine mounts were very soft to reduce NVH. So if you gave the accelerator cable a sharp tug, the engine would heel over dramatically, then swing back. This would then give the accelerator cable another sharp tug, the engine would heel over again, swing back, tug the accelerator again etc.
This could theoretically continue until you drained the fuel tank.
So beware to those who would tune it by gunning the snot out of it. 🙂
For some weird and frightful reason, there is something oddly compelling about this Mayflower. It’s not able to be explained, it just is.
Great article. Looks like a much later MG [ MGB, Austin America? ] roof plopped on another car though.
I’m going to suggest it: Was this the real inspiration for the Cadillac Seville of 1980?
The myth that “Americans like modernism” seems to infect lots of designers. It never goes away, even though it’s never been right. The Airflow should have been a lesson, but obviously it wasn’t!
Standard was producing the old-fashioned Ten at the same time as the modern Mayflower, and they sold a fair number of Tens in America. That should have been a lesson, but obviously it wasn’t!
Now, in 2014, I find that Standard Ten to be just plain homely, no matter which of the several grill designs is on it. At least the Mayflower is quirky-homely.
Agreed…I’ve always kind of liked the Mayflower. It’s ugly in an oddball, endearing way. The Eight/Ten are just grimly plain-looking cars.
I actually saw one of these. In the mid 70s I used to commute past a scrap yard and for several months I saw this car outside the “compound”. It must have been scrap, it never seemed to move from it’s parking space, and yet it also sat outside the yard for so long. Seeing one up close, it’s hard to believe you aren’t looking at a (mock) Rolls Royce built for a troupe of midget clowns.
BTW, I know Americans were just beginning to THINK about the interstate highway system, but Standard-Triumph were really nuts to think we wanted a car that accelerated so sloooooowly, AND got only 24 mpg, AND cost as much as the average American car.
That said, the Austin Atlantic was an “interesting” try to cater to the ( nearly) same market. Why it didn’t do better?
IIRC the Atlantic was priced like a Roadmaster convertible. Which would you buy?
Here is an eggnog induced idea: let’s take a Crosley chassis, dress it up like an Excalibur and sell it to the British. What do you think?
Once, the Benny Hill Show had a sketch where Benny was a country and western singer and he sang a tune that went something like this: “Oh, I call my car the Mayflower, on account of all the Puritans who’ve come across in it!”
These were sold in Australia. Pre WW2 Australians preferred cars from the USA, many of which were assembled here – these cars suited Australian conditions. Post WW2 , Australia was forced to accept all manner of British hoods, in an effort to assist them with valuable export revenue. Dreadful, underpowered and poorly built cars from a the UK began to appear everywhere and they quickly perished on our roads.
I have never seen a Mayflower on the road, but a hoarder up a mountain road from our family home had a dozen or so of them decaying in his yard when I was a child. Whenever we drove past, my father would always pout them out and tell me what horrible cars they were.
It amazes me that these were sent to the USA and I am really staggered taht anyone stateside actually parted with money to buy one!!
Agreed this car was an artistic disaster like several other British cars of the late ’40’s that tried to combine outdated styling with a token nod to the modern look .The Mayflower has the razor edged look of the loveley Triumph 1800/Renown in the roof line and trunk but tries to combine it disastrously with a slab sided lower body.I have seen a couple and to give it credit as someone said before the large glass area does give the interior a light and airy look for such a small car however it took another ten years and an Italian stylist before Standard Triumph could market an attractive and well loved small car cue the Herald
I rather like the ‘ Mini Rolls ‘ appearance of these .
I know one fellow in So. Cal. who faithfully and fully restored one , I’d like to get a ride in it but flat heads are junk , always will be .
I used to know where several of these were ‘ resting ‘ quietly here and there around Los Angeles , ALL had serious rust through issues .
-Nate
The neighbour of my father’s mother back in the late 70’s had a black Mayflower sitting in the front yard. it never moved in all the time that I visited my grandmother’s house – I wonder what happened to it?
In the photo with the horse, the car looks almost normal!!
The Cimarron analogy isn’t really apt. The Cimarron was tarted up relative to the Cavalier original, but it didn’t look as if it had been through the wash!
The picnic basket reminded me that in 1991 I saw a 1930s Ford Popular on display at a museum in London. There was a picnic basket in the back seat, with a selection of period paperback books.
“Triumph Mayflower is unique in styling among foreign sedans and convertibles sold in the U.S.”—no argument there!
The Austin A90 Atlantic didn’t do well in the colonies either.
For those mentioning the Austin A90 Atlantic are rare in the USA and fetch a lot of money, this guy seems to have gathered all of them. And selling them, from his side but he has one on Ebay right now too. Pretty cheap I would say for such rare cars.
https://rareaustins.com/austin-a90-atlantic
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1950-Austin-Atlantic-Sports-Saloon-A90/143830148574
I have now seen 2 examples of this car, apparently Florida and California are big markets for overpriced, somewhat oddball, cars.
Amazingly small, looks like a Rolls-Royce for circus clowns.
ARF, ARF! What a dog! Thanks for a great essay!
Heck, I would drive one but maybe with a bit more motor.
That really isn’t a good looking car. There’s one local to me that has been on Marketplace now for about a year. It really takes someone that’s 100% enthusiastic about these to buy one.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1199943113696313/
In England they were commonly derided as the butler’s car.
This is the best way to make the car more attractive. This may have been in Hong Kong.
The Black and Maroon Mayflower in the article is my old car ESK 253 but it is a 1952 not as you state a 1949
.Regards
Eddie Gallimore