Life, 1910-12-01 · page 90 of 108
Life — December 1, 1910 — page 90: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is an advertisement/promotion for a competition among automobile manufacturers. From October 1910 to April 1911, LIFE magazine ran a "Great Auto Cup Race"—not an actual vehicle race, but a contest measuring which car company purchased the most advertising space in the magazine itself. The page lists competitors (Locomobile, Packard, Pierce Arrow, Oldsmobile, etc.) ranked by "lines" of advertising they've purchased. The humor lies in LIFE's self-aware irony: they're marketing this as a prestigious "sporting" competition with a solid gold trophy, when it's purely a scheme to sell more ad space. The text even admits the contest is "philanthropic" and "sets it apart from all other contests"—tongue-in-cheek language acknowledging this is really just competitive advertising spending disguised as sport. This reflects early-1900s magazine economics: publications relied heavily on advertising revenue and used creative promotions to boost corporate ad purchases.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1% NUE) es Fo Locomobile, 2100 lines Packard, 1680 lines Pierce Arrow, 1680 lines Oldsmobile, 1260 lines sour ogzt ‘aaa HOW THEY STAND TO DATE “Car Coming!” Contestants in LIFE’S Great Auto Cup Race Speeding Onward, Beating All Records soury oFg ‘21291a J9qeY Club Car, 210 lines sect ozp ‘enqomdnn Life’s Automobile Race for a solid gold cup to be presented to the Auto- mobile manufacturer having the great- est number of advertising lines in LIFE from October 1, 1910, to April I, 1911, is attracting great crowds all over the country. Kelly Motor Truck Co. sour ore ONTUE The purely philanthropic nature of this unique contest, which places it on such a high sporting level, natu- rally sets it apart from all other con- tests. Brewster, 210 lines Waverley Electric 448 lines saulT OFS 90Dspg [PME yy Rauch & Lang Electric 448 lines souyi ez ‘sauI82g SUIT Shp ‘souceyy SaUTT 169 'S89}290q nd 7a See Wye € eS) cay)