Life, 1917-08-16 · page 3 of 40
Life — August 16, 1917 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising, not satire or political commentary**. It's a full-page advertisement for the Torbensen Axle Company of Cleveland, Ohio, promoting their "Internal-Gear Truck Drive" for commercial delivery vehicles. The illustration shows a newspaper delivery truck loaded with papers, with three men conducting business—depicting reliability in news distribution. The ad emphasizes that newspapers demand "the newest news—quick," requiring trucks with dependable axles that can handle heavy loads without failure. The accompanying technical diagram and text explain the I-Beam differential's superior engineering. This is straightforward commercial marketing targeting fleet operators, not satirical content. The "Life" magazine platform simply provided advertising space to industrial manufacturers of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TORBENSEN DRIVES are made to LAST. Every owner getsa GOLD BOND. NTEE that the J- the spindles of the track; and that the internal gears will last ot least two years. Reliability-Dispatch = foolproofness-/7 these axles HE people clamor for news. . ind the newest news—quick! This demand for never-fail reliability is hard on many motor trucks —because they have rear axles, unsuited, even for ordinary truck loads. They have modified pleasure-car axles! In newspaper delivery the loads are heavy and the service drastically severe. Pleasure-car axles can’t stand such loads and such work together. It takes a TRUCK axle, with a steel, load-carrying I-Beam, and a The I-Beam carries all the load. separate driving member, to stand racking news delivery. One of the biggest western newspapers has a great fleet of Torbensen- uipped trucks. They have averaged over seventy thousand miles each. Their service has been reliable, prompt, foolproof. They deliver on time. And this has been the experience of Torbensen Drive users in every industry. Insist on truck-saving, gas-saving, tire-saving, money-saving TORBEN- SEN DRIVE. You can get make-good trucks regularly equipped with it. THE TORBENSEN AXLE CO. CLEVELAND. OHIO The differential and jack-shafts exclusively do all the driving. The differential is securely fas- tened intothe large opening in the expanded part of the I-Beam. So these two units—each with dis- tinct functions and neither inter- Sering in any way with the other se arebald together in practically perfect, permanent alignment. Torbensen Drive is lighter, by half, than any other type of drive. Itis stronger and longer wearing. \ roe DRIVE | xun | comicbooks.com