Please Help Me Figure Out What The Hell “Panty Mutter” Means In This Old Land Rover Ad, Which Was Poking Fun At A Rolls-Royce Ad

Do you like words? I sure do. Why, I even use them on a regular basis in my career, which involves taking words from a large, disorganized bin, running them through the verbal refiner machine, and then arranging them into strings known as “sentences” on a large board, shifting their order incessantly until they form semi-coherent thoughts at least tangentially related to cars or other forms of mechanized transport. It can be rewarding work, and it’s part of a long tradition of similar work, such as the work of people who arranged words for car ads.

I found an example of such a word-heavy car ad from 1965, and it’s an interesting one. It’s interesting for a number of reasons, which I’ve already hinted at in that headline. It’s an ad from 1965 for Land Rover, and is poking fun, rather directly and pointedly, at a very well-known Rolls-Royce ad. We’ll dig into that part first before I really get into wondering what the hell “panty mutter” means in the context of a car ad, especially one that quotes Of Mice and Men author John Steinbeck.

Here’s the ad I’m talking about:

If you’re not familiar with the Rolls-Royce ad that this ad parodies, it’s kind of a puzzling ad. Carmakers weren’t generally crowing about how loud their cars were in the mid-’60s. The goals were generally refinement, and refinement meant quiet. That was what Rolls-Royce was bragging about when they ran this ad, the one that I suspect you’ve heard the tagline from before:

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”

That’s a pretty famous bit of automotive advertising, and, if we all accept that that electric clock was not running off a dynamo powered by a two-stroke diesel engine in the glovebox, then that car must be quiet, quite quiet indeed. This ad copy was written by the famous David Ogilvy, of the Bernbach & Ogilvy firm, who were known for clever, iconoclastic ads like these.

The format of the ad is interesting as well: a numbered list, each noting a particular notable trait about this extremely esteemed and refined automobile. The whole ad has an air of intelligent sophistication, witty and smart and understated.

Now look again at that Land Rover ad, which was very cleverly done by an adman named Howard Gossage:

It’s the exact same format, but about a car that’s essentially at the opposite extreme of refinement: a Land Rover. An unashamedly loud and unabashedly mechanical vehicle, all about utility and almost nothing about refinement. At 60 mph, you hear the engine in your Land Rover, as hashem and John Steinbeck (see the first part of the ad, where Steinbeck says “I don’t know a driver who doesn’t want to hear his engine“) agree is important. Not the damn clock.

The whole ad follows the same numbered-list format of the Rolls-Royce ad, and even includes a cheeky little send up of the inset pair of grilles seen in the Rolls-Royce ad:

This bit is interesting, because of how open Rolls-Royce is that the Bentley is essentially the same car, sans the trademark grille. Also, only $300 less for the Bentley? That comes to about $3,200 today. That’s not that much of a difference? Especially when you figure that a Rolls back in 1965 was worth about $200,000 in today’s money.

Anyway, look what the Land Rover ad did in place of the Rolls/Bentley grille thing:

Two grilles again, but one shows the spare tire on top, one doesn’t. The ad copy is especially clever because it uses the exact same affected language – “if you feel diffident” – as the Rolls-Royce ad, but here we’re talking about a difference of, in today’s money, under $80 bucks.

This is funny stuff! Subtle, funny stuff. And to understand it, you’d have to expect that your audience was already familiar with that very specific Rolls-Royce ad, but I suppose one could expect an audience of mid-’60s magazine readers in the UK would be.

There’s another version of the ad that calls out the original Rolls-Royce ad specifically, and brings in a third car to the party as well:

Here the ad references how Ford tested their 1965 LTD against a Rolls and found that the Ford was actually quieter, which is a hell of a coup. Here’s one of Ford’s commercials about that:

This section of ad is so damn clever and witty, I’m just going to quote it here for you:

” 1. You may recall that Rolls-Royce once ran an advertisement. It revealed that their admirable two-wheel drive vehicle was so quiet an electric clock could drown it out.
2. Then, quite recently, Ford advertised that it “rides quieter than a Rolls-Royce!” This after a series of thorough tests (they bought two brand new Rollses) to get “evidence that no one, however skeptical, could shrug off.”
3. It was thoughtful of Ford to do the testing, for it is not something the average consumer can check for himself. How many people have a Rolls for a second car?
4. Unfortunately, the whole thing was a tragie mistake, counter-claimwise. For Bolls-Royce had said nothing about being quieter than Ford. All they claimed was that they were quieter than their own electrie clock going 60 miles an hour. (“But Officer, I was only doing ten after five.”)
5. However, all is not lost. Since our four-wheel drive vehicle (8 speeds forward, 2 in reverse) is actually much londer than the Rolls’s electric clock-or Big Ben, for that mutter — we have decided to give Ford a fresh start by offering the Land-Rover for comparison.
6. The claim then: “THE 1965 FORD RIDES QUIETER THAN A LAND-ROVER!” They are welcome to use this in their advertising. If they’d like to do some tests first wed be delighted to sell them two Land-Rovers. We’ll give them a nice trade-in on those two Rollses if they’re still on the lot.
7. Nor is this claim true only at 60 miles an hour. A Land-Rover is more conspicuous even when it is standing still. With the ignition off
8. The Land-Rover stands nearly even feet tall. All its features tend to heroic proportion. When driving you will simply loom over traffic, which is at once safe and enjoyable.
9. It is built to withstand the full charge of a bull rhinoceros and is often used for this purpose, though not in North America.
10. The Land-Rover’s sturdiness of construction (the under-frame resembles a reinforced section of railway track) makes it ideal for trackless wastes, carpools of small children, wretched ordeals, etc.

This is gold! The “But Officer, I was only doing ten after five” line? Gold. The bull rhino bit? Gold. The small children/wretched ordeals bit? Gold!

Okay, we finally need to get to the part of this whole ad that I can’t figure out. This bit:

Let’s zoom in on that little box. Computer! Zoom, and enhancellate!

Okay, so Land Rover is taking a moment to plug its sister brand, Rover, even before both would end up as part of British Leyland in 1968. Again we have a quote from John Steinbeck, who talks about the sound of the Rover 2000 Sports Sedan, which he notes has

“a little panty mutter when idling that rises to a whispering roar…”

What the hell is he talking about? What is a “panty mutter?”

Of course, I tried Googling the phrase, but all I got were ads for maternity underwear. Was “panty mutter” an expression of some kind? Like a combination of something like a horse whisperer and a panty dropper?

But then I realized that the Brits are far more likely to use “knickers” for “panty” which may mean that it’s not referring to underwear at all! Maybe it just means panty like, you know, someone panting, in the breathing sense?

But John Steinbeck was American? Though I suppose that doesn’t preclude him from making an adjective out of the word “pant” by adding that wild vowel-curious letter “y” to the end. So maybe he does mean a low, barely audible breathing-like sound?

I guess that makes more sense than the underwear reading. Still, it’s weird, right?

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this whole panty mutter matter, if you don’t mind?

Top photo: Land Rover