A look back at some California classics

These days, you might see Jay Leno driving a Full Classic through the middle of Burbank, Calif., but there’s a history of spotting great cars in that city that predates the famous comedian and car collector.

From 1949 to 1955, Lynn Mayfield operated Mayfield Car Co. at 100 North Hollywood Way in Burbank. From a small office at the corner of North Hollywood Way and Olive Boulevard, beneath two giant signs — one featuring a giant cut-out of a Kissel Goldbug speedster, the other a cut out of a phaeton — Mayfield displayed “special interest cars.” These cars parked beneath circus-like “Antique and Classic Cars” signs were the type that would make many of today’s concours fields envious. Parked behind the sidewalk along North Hollywood Way, Mayfield might have a Ruxton, a duPont, a Stutz, Cadillacs, Auburns, Lincoln V-12s, Packards, Rolls-Royces, Pierce-Arrows — maybe all at once. At one point in 1955, Mayfield Car Co. displayed a Duesenberg Model J braced by two Mercedes-Benz 540K models. Combined, these three cars alone would be worth tens of millions of dollars today. When they were parked on Mayfield’s lot, however, they were worth just a few thousand dollars, at most.

A surviving business card is evidence that Mayfield received assistance running his special-interest car lot from Jim McNamara, manager of Mayfield Car Co. during at least part of its brief existence. Correspondence between McNamara and multiple-Auburn-Speedster owner Millard Wilkerson from January 1954 discusses a 1935 Auburn Speedster requiring some restoration, even after having received $1,300 in repairs from Dallas Winslow’s Auburn Cord Duesenberg Co. in Auburn, Ind.

The lot full of classics was one of two lots that Lynn Mayfield operated at the time, the other featuring late-model used cars from his storefront at North Hollywood Way and Riverside Drive. Some of the late-model cars sold by Mayfield were more than just used cars. In October 1950, Mayfield advertised a 1949 Plymouth club coupe as a “beautiful custom car with two-tone pleated leather interior” and a “full race” motor, chrome discs and a platinum finish “for those who want a distinguished car.” No price was listed.

According to Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg historian and retired restorer Randy Ema, of Orange, Calif., at least some of the 1930s Classics offered at Mayfield Car Co. were being sold there on consignment. How all of these once-exotic cars landed on a lot in semi-rural postwar Burbank isn’t clear, but perhaps the characters working from the nearby Warner Brothers studio were the source of at least some of the big, fancy cars.

As if two street fronts lined with giant, chrome-plated tombstone grilles of prewar Cadillacs and Lincolns didn’t prove enough of a draw, Mayfield occasionally advertised its inventory in The Los Angeles Times and North Hollywood’s Valley Times newspapers. The March 11, 1955, The Los Angeles Times lists perhaps the most impressive grouping of cars ever on Mayfield Car Co.’s lot at once: 1933 and 1936 Rolls-Royces, a 1935 Duesenberg Murphy convertible coupe and a restored 1939 Mercedes-Benz 540K all fill one listing that leads the newspaper’s used automobiles section.

Pictured here are scenes illustrating some of the cars Mayfield Car Co. offered in 1954 and 1955, the end of its run at what was really a novel idea at the time. While brass-era cars were certainly considered collectable in the years immediately after World War II, many still considered giant 1930s Cadillacs, Packards and even Duesenbergs to be brontosauruses. But just as interest in Full Classics was beginning to ramp up, Mayfield seems to have shuttered its doors (advertisements seem to stop in 1955).

Not surprisingly, many of the cars pictured here have survived. After all, they survived the war scrap drives to land on a car lot specializing in antiquated vehicles. One of the cars on the lot of the Mayfield Car Co. even landed on the green of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance where it won Best of Show. Thanks to the help of Randy Ema, we can share the fate of that Pebble Beach Best of Show winner and some of the other pictured cars.

Special thanks to Randy Ema for his help preparing this story.

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