Driving has always been a wholly multisensory experience: the simple pleasure of tackling a great road in a great car just wouldn’t be the same without an array of sounds, smells and other sensations.
However, a key part of that cocktail is changing, because electrification isn’t just changing how cars are powered but also how they sound. The merits of that can be argued, but the importance of noise to the motoring experience can’t. So we’ve been thinking of our favourite car noises. But you won’t find a screaming V10, rumbling V8 or mighty flat six here: we’ve left individual engines to one side to contemplate the other great noises cars that make...
Start-up in a British lightweight
It’s an easy one, this: the engine start-up sound when you’re sitting in any lightweight, open-roofed British sports car. I’m thinking Caterhams, Radicals, Ariels, Westfields and the like. The noise is the starting gun for a drive that will stir your soul and really make you feel alive. Cars like this are as immersive as they get and involve more of your senses in a drive than anything else. Just from writing this, I’m off for a trip into the classifieds… Mark Tisshaw
Cooldown crackling
If I were asked to choose one specific sound from one specific car, my answer would unapologetically be the full spectrum of Lamborghini’s current 5.2-litre V10 engine, absorbed at nosebleed-inducing length by holding the throttle wide open from 2000rpm to the redline, ideally while heading through the most perfectly spherical tunnel you can find. But in general terms, it has to be the syncopated crackling of thermal contraction after a hard drive. If you can hear that, you’re probably somewhere quite peaceful – somewhere that exists in contrast to the excitement that has just unfolded. It immediately puts me in a reflective, philosophical, car-loving mood. Richard Lane
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Since I'm not a drug dealer, I must be an idiot :-)
just to make myself even more unpopular, I'm rather fond of:
RRS SVR on the overrun
458 - on sound alone, Italia not Speciale
Pure love for the downshifts driving R8 LMS Ultra
Flat shifting at red line in Caterham 420R
Subaru 22B - if you know, you know
Top spot goes to F40 with Tubi exhaust. Pops, crackles, bangs, flames and none of it artificial. Just pips the Napier Bentley which is unfathomable.
And btw - agree about the Taycan Turbo S. If that's what the future must be, it's better than I expected.
Whilst I loved the sound of the 1990's V10 F1 cars and my old Ducati 996 and love classic car hill climbs, I'm more inclined to say bring on electric road cars ASAP. The only noisy cars on the roads are the ones driven by idiots/drug dealers who rev them at 80mph down residential streets, or 50cc scooters with all baffles removed. I had a go in an an AMG E63 with sports exhaust recently, just emabrassing with all the pops and crackles at 30mph in traffic whilst he was in my Tesla 3 at the same speed with more acceleration but in near silence!
I don't understand why EV manufacturers don't make more of the high pitched whine of the motors. I remember first seeing a video of the electric Morgan 3 wheeler prototype and finding the noise quite visceral. In a Tesla you get a very subdued whine when you're really hammering it, but not enough to stir the blood.
The idea of making electric cars sound like petrol powered ones is a bit like Mr Benz saying, yep it's alright, but it needs to sound more like a horse.