Life, 1921-02-17 · page 27 of 34
Life — February 17, 1921 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is **not a cartoon or satire** — it's a luxury automobile advertisement for the Lafayette, a real car manufactured by Lafayette Motors Company (based in Indianapolis, per the text). The page features an ornate circular portrait (in the classical engraving style) of what appears to be the **Marquis de Lafayette**, the French Revolutionary War hero. The company borrowed his name and dignified image to brand their vehicle as embodying noble ideals: beauty, strength, precision, and quiet excellence. The lengthy text is aspirational marketing copy positioning the Lafayette as the culmination of automotive achievement — a car built with religious dedication to quality that will serve owners "brilliantly and well." The appeal is to affluent buyers valuing refinement over mere mechanical function. This represents early 20th-century luxury car marketing that emphasized heritage, craftsmanship, and aristocratic association rather than speed or power.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ING 70 ANGER WANT ris) You HAVE always known there would be such a car. You have felt it would be beautiful with the beauty of true proportion and delib- erate grace. You have known it would be strong with the strength of unflawed metal and authentic skill. Silence would be the elo- quent advocate of its merit # Thinking these things, and how other cars wonderfully fine have only narrowly failed of this image, surely we were bold indeed who should seek in such an enterprise to be successful. Surely we had need religiously to compact in this all that the past has proved and, not incautiously, that the future prom- ised. For ours was to be a car which constantly should do quietly and with ease what many another might not do at all. Such a car as might with safety and with honor uphold upon its finished excellence our future and our hopes # # We offer it to you now. And if in so offering it there is evident some slender trace of pride, it is such pride as rightfully may be found in the knowledge of how earnestly we have tried to make it fine # It is beautiful and quiet and strong. It will serve youbrilliantlyand well. LAFAYETTE MOTORS COMPANY at LAFAYETTE comicbooks.com