Life, 1905-01-19 · page 38 of 38
Life — January 19, 1905 — page 38: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily **advertising**, not satire or political commentary. The page showcases Waltham Manufacturing Company's 1905 automobile line. The content centers on promoting **air-cooled engines** as a technological innovation. The company claims superiority: they've built over 3,000 air-cooled motors—"more than the combined output of all other makers of this type." They emphasize practical proof, describing a summer test drive in Massachusetts where the engine remained so cool that dashboard paint didn't blister even under intense heat and heavy load. The page displays four vehicle models with prices ranging from $375 (Buckboard) to $2,250 (Orient de Luxe Touring Car). The text argues that air-cooling—rather than water-cooling—is what "the public has been demanding." **For modern readers:** This reflects early automotive competition when engine cooling was a genuine technical challenge and selling point. The advertisement's emphasis on durability testing and competitive claims represents early 20th-century marketing strategy in an emerging industry.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
January 15, 1995. BUCKBOARD, $375 ORIENT DE LUXE TOURING CAR, 18-20 HORSEPOWER, $2250 AIR-COOLING COOLS. We have been building motor cars for seven years, and we changed from water-zooling to air-cooling because our own experiments proved that air-cooling was practical. We have built and have in successful operation, over 3000 air-cooled motors. This is more than the combined output of all other makers of this type. Last summer we drove a Touring Car equipped with our latest 4-cylinder vertical tandem, Positive Air-Cooled Motor over all the country roads in eastern Massachusetts, in order to thoroughly test it under most adverse conditions. With five persons in the car it was frequently driven 80 miles without a stop under a blazing August sun, and the motor ran so coolly that not even the paint on the dash or hood was blistered. This is the sort of motor that the public has been demanding ever since automobiles became an established fact. We have equipped all four of our 1905 touring cars with this motor. It has four cylinders arranged upright in a row, parallel to the length of the car. These cylinders are specially flanged to give the greatest possible cooling surfaces, and they are subject to a circulating air-blast from a powerful 4-bladed fan, the air, after reaching every square inch of cylinder surface, being finally drawn out through the bottom. There are eight cars in the Orient line this year—four Touring Cars, and four of the popular Buckboards. The Touring Runabout is sold at $1500, the Light Touring Car with Tonneau at $1650, the model G “Touring Car at $2000, and the model de Luxe at $2250. The cheaper models have all the salient features of the model de Luxe, which is true only of Orients this year, The Buckboards range in price from $375 to $525, two of the styles seating two passengers and two of the styles seating four passengers. Let us send you an Orient Style Book for 1905—the most beautiful motor-car book ever produced by any manufacturer, showing the cars in their natural colors by a new process. Waltham Manufacturing Company. Members of Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. BUCKBOARD SURREY, $450 WALTHAM, MASS. BUCKBOARD TONNEAU, $525 (Bates Advertising Co., N.Y.) comicbooks.com