Some  Automobile Advertisements 1910 -1913

There were many car companies in 1910, hundreds in fact, some with names we still recognize, others quite obscure. A Sept 2005 editorial in the New York Times compares the early Internet with the early automobile industry: lots and lots of entrepreneurs trying to get on the bandwagon but only a few making it and lasting! In the article Our Billion Dollar Toy on this website the author connects the flurry of car advertising with the car-mania of the middle class. Early car ads provide a very interesting study of advertising techniques. In those days as you will see, they thought they had to say more, rather than less,  to make their car stand out from the rest. Many of these ads were full page ones in mass market magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. (Remember, people were used to reading lots of copy; magazine articles of the day were also long and wordy.)  From a modern standpoint, most of the autos in the ads look about the same, perhaps another reason for the long lists of attributes.  As a former advertising copywriter, I find some of the copy to be extraordinarily modern-sounding. Check out the Rambler ad. I will be adding advertisements from time to time.

Click below for Ads.

The Model T Ford Touring Car 1912

The Marion

The Haynes

Regal

Lozier

Rambler

The Everitt

The Chalmers

The Bergdoll

The Abbott-Detroit

The Stoddard-Dayton

The Overland targets boys in advertising.

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