Life, 1916-01-06 · page 6 of 48
Life — January 6, 1916 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is an advertisement for the Chalmers automobile, specifically its new 3400 r.p.m. (revolutions per minute) engine model. The text celebrates the car's popularity—100,000 people visited showrooms in two months following its $22,000,000 launch. The key appeal was **acceleration and speed**. The advertisement emphasizes that 3400 r.p.m. represented the highest engine speed available for American stock cars, contrasting with European vehicles that used smaller, less powerful engines due to high fuel costs and tax structures based on horsepower. The simple line drawing shows a car on a country road, illustrating the "great treat of a run in the open country" promised by the accelerator. This is straightforward automotive marketing, not political satire—it's celebrating American engineering superiority and the consumer appeal of a powerful, fast automobile.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The New 3400 r.p.m. Chalmers Has Brought 100,000 Discriminating It is now two months since 600 able merchants bought $22,000,000 worth of the new 3400 r. p.m. Chalmers car at its unveiling in Detroit. Over 100,000 people have since flocked to Chalmers salesrooms all over America to see this most talked-of car of the season. One look lures—makes you feel that here’s the car you ought to own. The great treat of a run in the open country with a foot on the accelerator makes you reach for your check book. This car will go down in history for its ability—and because it ties up big value and low price. But most names leap to the dotted line because of the car’s great roadability. It’s called the 3400 r. p. m. Chalmers because of its wonderful acceleration, 8400 r. p.m. means $400 revolutions per minute—that’s the speed of its engine, the highest ever developed for stock car use in America, Some cars do 1400. Several 1800. Some attain 2200. One or two turn up 2600. One achieves 3000 r. p. m. Engine speed means everything. In Europe, where petrol is high in cost and cars are taxed according to horse-power rating, engineers for years have been forced to get more and more power out of smaller and smaller engines. * Hence so many foreign cars have such high-speed engines, and have beaten so many American cars on the race-track, Building a smaller engine enabled Europe to build a lighter chassis. Here was the cue for Chalmers engineers. comicbooks.com