Life — December 4, 1913 — page 102: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is primarily a **car advertisement**, not a political cartoon. It promotes the Willys-Overland Company's electric automobile, priced at $1,550. The ad emphasizes the car's modern conveniences: electric lighting and starting via button/lever control—innovations that were still relatively novel in the early automotive era. The text highlights competitive advantages: comparable luxury to expensive electric vehicles but at roughly half the cost, plus superior power and range. The photograph shows a woman seated in the open-air vehicle, likely chosen to demonstrate the car's ease of operation and appeal to affluent consumers. The implicit message is that this sophisticated technology is now accessible to the middle class. This reflects early 20th-century automotive marketing, when electric cars competed vigorously with gasoline models before eventually losing market dominance.