Piccadilly

The Piccadilly, manufactured by Williams and released in April 1956, is a two-player electro-mechanical machine designed by company founder Harry Williams, with art by George Molentin. Its 'World Places - Women' theme reflects the era's pinball art conventions.

Gameplay on the Piccadilly is a standard 5-ball-per-play EM design featuring five pop bumpers, four passive bumpers, two slingshots, and a gobble hole. Its standout mechanic is a numbered sequence-light feature: three passive bumpers and two rebound rubbers are numbered 1 through 5, and hitting them in sequence turns off each number on the playfield while lighting the corresponding number on the backglass. Earned numbers carry over from ball to ball, and completing the full 1-5 sequence resets it for another attempt, with the bumper score value climbing from 1 point up to a replay on the final hit.

This playfield 'memory' system, using an alternating step-up unit dedicated to each player, was an early example of Williams tracking per-player progress across balls on a multi-player EM game -- a feature the company would later reuse in 1966's '8 Ball' and 1968's 'Pit Stop.' Little else is documented about Piccadilly beyond its specifications, making it an intriguing piece for collectors interested in Williams' mid-1950s EM output.