Life, 1914-02-12 · page 44 of 44
Life — February 12, 1914 — page 44: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **full-page advertisement** for the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company (Buffalo, NY), not political satire. The illustration shows an early 1910s automobile with passengers, rendered in silhouette style against an urban backdrop with tall buildings. The ad emphasizes the car's reliability and practicality—promising dependable transportation "there and back" with minimal trouble, maximum comfort, and low expense. The appeal targets affluent buyers seeking a premium vehicle that performs consistently without mechanical failures interrupting trips. This reflects early automotive-era concerns: cars were still mechanically unreliable, and breakdowns were common. Pierce-Arrow positions itself as solving this problem through superior engineering. The ornamental Art Nouveau-style border frames the message as a statement of corporate philosophy rather than price or specifications—marketing the brand's values to potential owners in *Life* magazine's upscale readership.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
February 12, 1914 THE PIERCE-ARROW CAR Our idea is that the car should go “there and back” in the shortest possible time, with the least trouble to both owner and driver, with the greatest comfort to the owner in transit, at the least expense, weight of car and equipment considered, and without interruption of the trip by reason of or the fault of the car, and that it should do this not only now and then, but always. That is the service that the Pierce-Arrow Car is planned to perform. The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company, Buffalo, N. Y¥.