Life, 1910-01-06 · page 9 of 76
Life — January 6, 1910 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily an **advertisement for the Hupmobile automobile**, not a political cartoon. The page compares the Hupmobile to luxury cars using a jewelry metaphor: "a perfect small diamond with a large one." The ad's satire targets **perceived snobbery about car prices**. It argues that a smaller, cheaper car ($750) can be as valuable and well-made as expensive luxury vehicles—just as a small diamond equals a large one in quality. The text mocks wealthy car owners' assumptions and appeals to middle-class buyers seeking quality without extravagance. The specifications box demonstrates the Hupmobile's technical merits (4-cylinder engine, sliding gears, etc.). A coupon invites readers to request literature, indicating this is a **direct-mail marketing campaign** from Hupp Motor Car Company in Detroit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ompares with the erfect small diamond with a large one 4 Cylinders 20 Horse Power Sliding Gears Bosch Magneto A small diamond is relatively just as good and just as valuable as a large one. In the same sense the Hupmobile is precisely as fine as the largest, the best and the most expensive cars made. We make the comparison because we want you to learn to associate the Hupmobile in your mind with the finest cars you know. The Hupmobile claims the right (and that right is conceded by discrim inating owners) to travel side by side with the best products of motordom. It confesses no delinquencies ; admits no inferiorities ; concedes no ad vantage, save size and carrying capacity, to cars costing twice and thrice its price. Observe the personnel of its ownership in your own city. Note that the majority of men who drive a Hupmobile are the men who know good cars—whose private garage, perhaps, houses several fine cars of other types. The Hupmobile was built to fill a particular need—to supply a special want—to furnish a type of car that was lackir Its creators could see no reason way a car carrying two pa should not be just as good—just as sound and just as trustworthy best big car built. Every part that contributes to power and speed and staunchness in the Hupmobile ts precisely as good and fine as the same part in the best big car The two are mates in quality. | The Hupmobile will go anywhere that the big car will go; climb any hill the big car will climb; and do anything the When you buy the ordinary car of moderate " trary, you buy a quality and a degree of excel- lence with which the price has nothing to do. on rear bubs, osch high te sand connecting wires x 3 inches BASE-S) inches. 9 inches If the Hupmobile were any bigger, it could not be made as good without increasing the price. yaut These things (which are literally true) will renais kit. pomp. explain to you what, perhaps, you had not un: ° big car will do except that it will not carry the Specifications: with the car, so that you can ride in same number of passengers. yh. HD. 34 in bores otrte stoke tl it and satisfy yourself as to the offset crank shatt: fan bladed ty literal truth of every statement es e ‘sliding gears price, you say to yourself: RRS atin —— HUPP “7 aii gotelag Jaat the Wort St car aleatea bciipte dite type'tellsdjasting: enclosed in gear case CLIP THE MOTOR CAR by price—a moderately good car. REAM ANLE-Shatt drive, Hyatt roller and New De prtere bear. COMPANY Wica.vou't i - ‘ ings shale aod yoiveral joint enclosed and lubricated by oil from COUPON nen You ay 2 Hupmobile, on the con: | BRAKES —Two foot and two emergency (internal expanding) lined Dept. J. om magneto, doing away with spark coil, Semi-elliptical front, patented cross spring rear. ‘T—Two side and tail oil lamps, dragon horn, tools, GtrT— fico pounds, regular equipment. Hupp Motor Car Company, Dept. 3. Detroit, Mich. ‘See our exhibit —Grand Central Palace, New York—Dec. 31-Jan. 8. costliest cars as a $750 (F.0.B. Detroit) derstood before—why you have encountered, in the year past, so many en thusiastic partisans of the Hupmobile. Everybody, if you will stop to think backward a little bit, has seemed to say kind things about the Hupmobile. They have said these things about the Hupmobile because itis the newly good kind of a moderate sized car which we have just described. A year ago there were less than 100 Hupmobiles in commission. Today 5,000 are heing built, as rapidly as excellence of workmanship with the finest materials will permit of hurry—to satisfy a demand which sprang up in incredible volume long before the first hundred cars was completed Of course, you want to know all about a car which has been favored with the warmest approval ever extended by the American motor-buying public to any motor car Even if you own a car to which you are strongly attached, you would like to have placed before you all the information which will shed light upon a condition so unprecedented as the Hupmobile has created. And if you are wavering in your choice of acar, your desire to know is even stronger. Sign and send the coupon. It will bring you not only the Hupmobile literature, picturing and describing the 1910 Hupmobile in every detail It will bring, in addition, the name and address of the Hupmobile dealer in your home, or the one nearest you. We will put you in direct touch we have made. AND SEND IT NOW Detroit, Mich. Send 1910 Hupmobile rature and name and ad- dress of Hupmobile dealer. ti comicbooks.com