Life, 1929-08-09 · page 2 of 44
Life — August 9, 1929 — page 2: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily **advertising, not satire or political commentary**. It's a Buick Motor Company advertisement for "The New Buick Pacemaker of Performance." The ad uses the metaphor of a swallow—"fleet as a swallow"—to describe the car's speed and elegance. It emphasizes the vehicle's Valve-in-Head engine (approximately 100 horsepower), smooth performance, and new Fisher bodies. The tagline calls it the "pacemaker of performance," suggesting it leads in automotive capability. The small illustration in the upper right appears to be a Buick logo or brand mark. This represents typical 1920s-30s automobile marketing rhetoric, emphasizing power, smoothness, and style to appeal to affluent consumers. There is no political or satirical content—it's straightforward product promotion.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE NEW BUICK PACEMAKER OF PERFORMANCE KLEET as a swallow . . . driven by a mighty Valve-in= Head engine which develops approximately one hundred horsepower . . «smooth as silk and nimbler than you ever thought a motor car could be. It's the pacemaker of performance—the master of hill, highway and city traffic. And it’s appareled in new Bodies by Fisher which instantly identify it as the greatest Buick of them all. Buick Motor Company, Flint, Mich. + Division of General Motors Corporation Builders of Marquette and Buick Motor Cars Canadian Factories: McLaughlin-Buick, Oshawa, Ontario comicbooks.com