Life, 1912-01-04 · page 14 of 108
Life — January 4, 1912 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is **not a cartoon or satire**, but rather a **straight advertisement** for The White Company's six-cylinder automobile, published in Life magazine. The ad addresses potential customers who've wondered about the company's plans to produce a six-cylinder car. It emphasizes the vehicle's simplicity and reliability—claiming it matches the engineering principles of their existing "30s" and "40s" models. The sales pitch highlights limited production and the car's availability "produced to-day instead of yesterday," suggesting exclusivity and immediacy as selling points. The decorative floral border and period typography are typical of early 1910s magazine design. This represents straightforward automotive marketing from the era's competitive nascent automobile industry, not satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Are You One Who’s Wondered? Pres you are among the hundredsof automobile enthusiasts—owners, drivers ?| or just “‘lookers on’ —who have wondered what The White Company would do SE) were it to produce a six-cylinder car. Probably you've come to have a splendid respect for any car The White Company might produce as you have watched their models year after year since the automobile industry began. Perhaps youare prejudiced, but it’s such a splendid prejudice, reaching back over years of actual performance, dur- ing which the name of “ White” stood as a bulwark for reliability and thorough building. If you had this curiosity, to-day we are ready to satisfy it—in a six-cylinder “ White.” It's hardly necessary to tell you the details of this car. The highest engineering author- ities in the gasoline-engine world have reached very definite conclusions, and any car de- signed to-day would imitate closely the mechanical features of this six-cylinder “White.” The Simplest “Six”’—The White course we take considerable pride in telling you that it’s built on the same iden- ical lines as our “30's” and ‘‘40's”’—it has the same marvelous simplicity which ells more than any word description of ours—that practically total absence of the paraphernalia that litter most engines, especially the more powerful types. Re- garding the details of finish, body lines and equipment. The White Company would not be outdone. This six-cylinder “60” White is all a car should be in these respects — possibly just a little more— because it has the advantage of being produced to-day instead of yesterday. Built as we like to build motor cars, there is only a limited - number of these cars to be produced this season. They're going pretty rapidly, order after order having been filled without even a photograph, a blue-print or a car to show. This isn’t a cry of “wolf,” but just a plain statement to our friends—to those who want this highest expression of an automobile as interpreted by the great White factory. We would not disappoint you if we could help it—you can help it by getting your appointment for a demonstration early. Appointments for demonstrations in all principal cities on or after January first.