Life, 1926-01-14 · page 5 of 40
Life — January 14, 1926 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is **not a cartoon or satire**—it's a **straightforward advertisement** for the Chrysler Imperial automobile, published in *Life* magazine. The ad announces the Imperial's specifications (92 horsepower, 80 mph) and uses rhetorical flourish to position it as a milestone in automotive achievement. The text employs a common advertising strategy: praising the creators' humility and restraint while simultaneously making grand claims about the car's "prodigies of performance" and "strikingly new and unusual expression of motor car beauty." The lengthy prose attempts to elevate the product by framing its announcement as a moment of historic technological progress—appealing to readers' sense of modernity and efficiency during what appears to be the 1920s-30s era of automotive innovation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IMPERIAL > HORSE-POWER a SO MILES PER HOUR Ar long and rare intervals men are able to pro- duce objects of art or utility which they instinctively know tobesuperior toany that have preceded them. They know instinctively, too, that the conquest of public opinion will be complete and instantaneous. Such periods of high achievement are moments of deep elation—but they are moments which move the creators to remain silent rather than to pile words of praise upon their own accomplishments. Walter P. Chrysler and his associates are experi- encing an hour of profound satisfaction in pre- senting to you the new Chrysler Imperial. They are reluctant to stress their own satisfaction in this announcement by endeavoring to arouse your expectations in advance. They have striven to create in the Chrysler Im- perial such prodigies of performance and such a strikingly new and unusual expression of motor car beauty that the car would literally proclaim itself at first glance. They are confident that you will see in the Chry- sler Imperial one more mile-stone in the evolution- ary progress of the motor car toward a higher sphere of efficiency and saving. comicbooks.com