Metropolitan Life — Super-Child (Rolls-Royce Scale Car) Vintage Advertisement
This is a Metropolitan Life Insurance Company advertisement, not a Rolls-Royce advertisement — the motor car is the illustration's subject, not the advertiser. The headline asks, "How come one company pays out a million dollars an hour?" and the copy answers with Metropolitan's scale: "In rich America, what children want, children get." The full-page photograph shows a child at the wheel of a miniature Rolls-Royce at night, light trails streaming past. The caption reads: "Is it a man? Is it a car? No, it's Super-Child, an American subteen at the wheel of a $90 Rolls-Royce scale car, headed no doubt to see his broker." The advertisement uses the child's fantasy of adult status — the Rolls-Royce as the emblem of having "arrived" — to sell life insurance to parents.
Category: Cars
Rarity Class: B
Paper & Print Condition
Full-page magazine advertisement — a color halftone reproduction on coated periodical stock. The night photograph's deep blacks and red light trails retain density; the child's face and the car's brightwork are legible. The caption and body copy are fully readable. The sheet is complete and flat, with the page number 58 visible.
Provenance & Rarity
Publication provenance: page 58 of its magazine issue (number printed on the sheet); advertiser identified by the headline and copy as Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Chain of custody: from the collection of Ronin Naodhinsuk; photographed for The Record Institute archive. Rarity — Class B (provisional): mass-circulation magazine advertising; the night-photography cover-style image makes it a visually distinctive survivor.
Rarity & Condition Summary
Class B artifact in Good condition: complete and flat, photograph and caption fully legible. Its interest is double: as a Metropolitan Life institutional advertisement and as a period image of the Rolls-Royce scale car as an object of childhood aspiration.
