Life, 1926-11-04 · page 39 of 40
Life — November 4, 1926 — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **full-page advertisement**, not a satirical cartoon. It promotes the Willys-Knight Great Six automobile by featuring endorsements from prominent American cultural figures of the era: actress Ethel Barrymore, engineer Lee DeForest, author Mary Roberts Rinehart, and others. The advertisement's appeal rests on **celebrity endorsement and social prestige**. It opens with a quote attributed to King Alfonso of Spain, lending royal approval. Each featured figure represents arts, sciences, and high society—suggesting the car appeals to refined, accomplished people, not merely wealthy ones. The technical claims (Knight sleeve-valve engine, no carbon troubles, superior efficiency) are secondary to the **social positioning**: owning this car signals cultivation and taste. For modern readers, this exemplifies early 20th-century advertising strategy: associate products with aspirational figures to sell luxury goods to an upwardly mobile audience.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“... take this opportunity to congratulate you on the wonderful car you have succeeded in turning out.” —By order of King Alfonso of Spain. THE ARTS AND SCIENCES ~- LITERATURE - SOCIETY - ROYALTY — unite in the most remarkable tribute ever pud to any motor car MISS ETHEL BARRYMORE rica’s foremell charalter adress ing a able ai MR. LEE DEFOREST Leading engineering authority w of no engine other than to sleeve-valve Knight which ally improves with use.” MARY ROBERTS RINEHART Asin, playwright, outdeor-wonan ‘Next to my favorite saddle-horse, £ ve me this spirited Willys Kowhe Great Six.” oF UST nineteen months ago a new-type car—different in its conception, different in its engineering, different in de- sign from anything that had ever preceded it—was first pre- sented for American consideration... An extremely powerful car, very fast, exceedingly ative... powered with the exclusive Knight sleeve-valve engine, prote@ted by patent, which other manufaturers would pay millions to get...a motor which years of tests have proven the most efficient automobile motor built... no carbon troubles, no valves to grind... A car whose marked beauty is conspicuous even among the most beautifully-designed cars...whose fittings and ap- pointments rank in richness, in luxury, in comfort, with the utmost the world’s finest cars afford... Te was inevitable that the Willys-Knight Great Six should Step quickly into a preferred place in public favor...a posi- tion it has so improved that today it is second to none in sales among luxury automobiles. Willys-Knight Great Six prices from $1750 to $2295, f. 0. b. factory. es and specifications subject to change without notice... The Willys Finance Plan offers unusually attractive credit terms. . Willys-Overland, Inc., Toledo, Ohio . . .Willys-Overland Sales Co., Lrd., Toronto, Canada, WILLYS’*KNIGHT Great S1X “WITH AN ENGINE YOU'LL MeyeR WEAR OUT” MRS. JEROME NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. Dittinguished society matron “Ceruinly no wo ould ask for a more charmingly appointed of more easily handled motor-car.” CHARLES DAN. Dean of A 1BSON artits work—as MISS ELSIE DE WOLFE Famous interior decorator “Someone with a true sense of the fitness of things conceived the appointments of this motor-car.” © © Underwood & Underwood comicbooks.com