125 replies to this topic

[chunder27]

Was just watching the Senna stuff on BBC and my oh my that Honda V12 was a fabulous sounding engine. Just listening to it rail through the gears on the start and finish line. I had to rewind the player, turn up the volume a bit and play it again.

So it got me to thinking about not necessarily the obvious great sounds liuke Ferrari V12, BRM V16 etc that most people will find pleasant.

 

But perhaps the cars that sound a bit more ruthless, aggressive and raw.

 

That Honda V12 is one for me from F1. The BMW turbo 4 cylinder always sounded brutal as did the TAG and Honda V6 turbo engines in qually trim.

 

N/A wise, for some reaosn the old Cosworth DFR engine I had a soft spot for after many days watching them in the early 90's, more visceral than a DFV.  And the Lambo V12 made a lovely noise. Aswell as the 94 V12 Ferrari,

 

The Porsche 935 is another from sports cars, the AER 4 cylinder turbo and the lethargic sound of that Lancia V8 in the 80's.

 

When it comes to other forms of racing, for some reason I love the sound of the C4 WRC Citroen, a proper BDA on song. the Manta 400 made an amazing noise.

 

And oddly from the front, ie the induction noise, any of the 90's DTM cars or the modern Berg Cup cars, what a raw sound that is!

 

Sound is such a vital part of our sport and the modern WEC and F1 cars have just lost that, despite being very fast.

Edited by chunder27, 24 June 2015 - 10:06.

[thegforcemaybewithyou]

 

[Jovanotti]

That Mazda is amazing, the Sauber C11 is pretty good and distinctive, too.

From F1, it's the '00/'01 single exhaust McLaren's hands down. Sounds like a bloody fighter plane.

[Kalmake]

[Fatgadget]

A Rally BDA Escort at full chat in Dalby forest in the early hours of the morning.Something about the echoes and Reverberations from the woodyard made my hairs stand on end   

[Nonesuch]

Mazda 787B Hunaudieres Straight

 
Excellent video. Reminds me of being at Spa-Francorchamps near Rivage and hearing the cars come up all the way through the forest.
 
Completely different but no less impressive is the latest series of Audi LMP1s. Seeing and hearing these around for the first time was fantastic, all the more so because the contrast to the other cars was so immense.
 

 
The Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT also has a rather... distinctive sound. I'm not sure I'd say I like it, but it's hard to forget.
 

Edited by Nonesuch, 24 June 2015 - 10:59.

[SteF1an]

Ferrari V12 

 

[Victor_RO]

Three big-banger twelves:

 

Flat-12 in the Porsche 917

 

Bad video, but good sound - 7-liter Jaguar Group C-spec V12. 

 

Lola-Aston Martin LMP1, 6-liter V12 howler

[Jimisgod]

The V10 F1 cars were majestic. V12 Ferraris are a nostalgia audio-erized (?)

[Afterburner]

Here's where I get to come in with the same old boring contribution again.

 

 

Its successor sounded great as well, in my opinion:

 

 

And these also sound much, much better in real life than they do on TV:

 

[AlexanderF1]

audi s1 one of my favourites.
[/url]
 
found this recently and it sounds awesome go to 2.46
 

 
1989  and 1990 mclaren = awsome v10 sound
 
http://www.dailymoti...st-part-2_sport
 
 

 
BRM V16

Edited by AlexanderF1, 24 June 2015 - 12:19.

[JHSingo]

 

[Dan333SP]

https://youtu.be/LF1OHTlk-d0?t=17s

 

Saw this car race in person 3 times- Sebring '99 and '00, and PLM '99. I still get goosebumps just thinking about how raw it sounded. The Mclaren F1 GTR had almost the same noise, but the LMR revved a bit higher.

 

Ferrari flat 12 is also a favorite. This video includes a few V12s as well-

 

 

Edit: Great minds think alike. JHSingo posted the same BMW video.

Edited by Dan333SP, 24 June 2015 - 12:49.

[Dan333SP]

This too. Goosebumps.

 

 

Nothing beats a 12 cylinder. Closest thing is the '00/'01 Mercedes V10 mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

Edit: People always describe the sound of the '60s/'70s Ferrari 12 cylinder engines as "ripping canvas". That's still the closest description. It's just this brutal throaty tearing noise that echoes in the most fantastic way.

Edited by Dan333SP, 24 June 2015 - 12:56.

[Jon83]

I've only ever heard a V8, twice at Monza. The sound was unbelievable IMO, no matter what people try and tell me.

 

I'd have loved to hear a V10. Maybe one day....

 

I think the LMP1 cars sounds pretty good on TV.

Edited by Jon83, 24 June 2015 - 12:55.

[Dan333SP]

More. This one is almost impossible to find footage of, given that it only raced for a season and hasn't really made any appearances since then. Mercedes C291, 3.5L flat 12. They had problems with the casting of the engine block and the car detonated regularly, but it managed to keep itself together for the last race of that season and gave MSC a win at Autopolis in Japan. Absolutely great noise, comparable to the Honda V12 in F1 of the same year.

 

[Lemans]

 

[V8 Fireworks]

I like super tourers... Mostly simple 4 cylinders, with the odd I5 and V6.  It's stuff your average punter can relate to, as they race away from the track in their Civic (Accord or Integra) Type R or Renault Clio RS   

 

Race car

 

Road car

https://youtu.be/9axaLmcNWQw?t=36s

 

   

 

The road car has the same basic engine (Honda H22) and everything   

 

Also, I am a big fan of the Honda NSX 

 

Race car

 

Road car

[Lemans]

This too. Goosebumps.

 

 

Nothing beats a 12 cylinder. Closest thing is the '00/'01 Mercedes V10 mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

Edit: People always describe the sound of the '60s/'70s Ferrari 12 cylinder engines as "ripping canvas". That's still the closest description. It's just this brutal throaty tearing noise that echoes in the most fantastic way.

 

I was just watching this clip a few days ago.

That is my favorite Ferrari of all. It's not a very well known Ferrari or popular but to my eyes it's the best looking by far.

[Dan333SP]

I was just watching this clip a few days ago.

That is my favorite Ferrari of all. It's not a very well known Ferrari or popular but to my eyes it's the best looking by far.

 

I agree, when I was a kid my older brother got Cavallino Magazine, which is of course devoted to Ferrari. There was an issue in the late 80s that featured a piece on Pierre Bardinon's collection in France. One picture featured his 312P and showed the slatted rear engine cover. It looked so low and sleek, like a spaceship, that I just stared at that photo over and over and loved that car. I had the chance to see it in person at a Ferrari historic event about 10 years ago, it's even more beautiful in the flesh and the sound is epic, obviously. It's much smaller than you'd think, sadly at 6'3" I'd never fit in the car.

 

http://smg.photobuck.../312P2.jpg.html

http://img253.images...753/mas11oy.jpg

Edited by Dan333SP, 24 June 2015 - 13:21.

[V8 Fireworks]

Actually my favourite racing sound is not the engine at all!

 

It's the straightcut gearbox whine which is ubiquitous in most race cars with full racing gearboxes... When the gears are loaded they make noise INSTANTLY - you hear the driver's throttle application in the gears MUCH faster than you hear the acutal engine response.  I have straight cuts gears in my road car, so I know how immediately you can hear the gears, the very instant you touch the throttle (while driving to the shops, hahaha). 

 

It's quite obvious here for example

 

 

While those V12s are nice, they are so high-brow and out of reach compared to cars you might actually see and hear at an average club track day or club-level race meeting.  The sound of Miata or Porsche is probably the most common sound?

 

Attainable racing sound? below:

 

(well not so much anymore for a 60s 911, lol)

 

 

The V12 and V10 stuff is nice and all, but it's so far beyond the realms of the average punter (apart from an old Jag maybe  )

 

Open wheelers?

 

How can one forget the angry sound of a Champcar   

 

Edited by V8 Fireworks, 24 June 2015 - 13:46.

[HeadFirst]

Not a car, the Yamaha OW31.

[Marklar]

My Citroen Saxo.........Im just joking ;)

For me the Honda V10.

[Lemans]

I agree, when I was a kid my older brother got Cavallino Magazine, which is of course devoted to Ferrari. There was an issue in the late 80s that featured a piece on Pierre Bardinon's collection in France. One picture featured his 312P and showed the slatted rear engine cover. It looked so low and sleek, like a spaceship, that I just stared at that photo over and over and loved that car. I had the chance to see it in person at a Ferrari historic event about 10 years ago, it's even more beautiful in the flesh and the sound is epic, obviously. It's much smaller than you'd think, sadly at 6'3" I'd never fit in the car.

 

http://smg.photobuck.../312P2.jpg.html

http://img253.images...753/mas11oy.jpg

 

That's what hooked me about the car, too. That impossibly low looking cab and the sleekness. Those rain soaked pictures of it are lovely. Most people go on about the P3 but I much prefer the 312P. No contest.

I keep a whole folder of photos of the car on my desktop. I'm currently working on a drawing of it. I might be a little obsessed.

[Dan333SP]

It made for a nice looking spyder as well-

 

[Lemans]

Indeed.

[BoschKurve]

The Lola-Aston Martin V12 car was one of the best sounding engines I've ever heard.

[chunder27]

Great posts guys, sorryt he thread now takes ages to load!

 

I had never found any footage of the Merc flat 12, that does sound fabulous!

 

I do seem to prefer brutal sounding cars and have a preference for real old turbo cars with huge lag, they just sound so hard to drive.

 

917/30, 935, some of the current Berg cup cars like Paillers Delta, Gabats car, Merlis wreird thing from a few years back.

 

I spend a lot of time on youtube trying to find decent pure soudns clips and have seen a lot of these before. Great stuff.

 

If you type in Hockenheim 92 testing you will find a belter, pure sound of V10, V12, even an Andrea Moda!

[chipmcdonald]

That Mazda is amazing, the Sauber C11 is pretty good and distinctive, too.

From F1, it's the '00/'01 single exhaust McLaren's hands down. Sounds like a bloody fighter plane.

 

The downshifts sounded great back then as well...

[Bob Riebe]

https://www.youtube....h?v=F1lL25wiq_s

[Lemans]

That Mazda is amazing, the Sauber C11 is pretty good and distinctive, too.

From F1, it's the '00/'01 single exhaust McLaren's hands down. Sounds like a bloody fighter plane.

 

I miss that car.

I miss that Hockenheim.

[GoldenColt]

 

Just to mess with people's minds. 

[Lemans]

The mighty McLaren M8. It's ****ing wonderful !

 

 

Edited by Lemans, 24 June 2015 - 18:50.

[Dan333SP]

 

Just to mess with people's minds. 

 

Need a dislike button.

 

I agree on the downshifts of the early '00s V10s being fantastic. I sat at the Montreal hairpin for all those years, and you'd feel the downshifts like big thumps in your chest from hundreds of feet away. It was always mind boggling to see them brake so late and crack off that many shifts so quickly.

 

Here's a car with a great noise on braking as well, the F430 GT2. Every time the drivers of these go off-throttle, they make this tasty crackling sound that the newer 458 GT car doesn't have-

 

[Victor_RO]

Here's a car with a great noise on braking as well, the F430 GT2. Every time the drivers of these go off-throttle, they make this tasty crackling sound that the newer 458 GT car doesn't have-

 

No, but the 458 GTE does have quite a nice shout when getting blipped on downshifts. The crackliest (if there is such a word) engine in the Le Mans field this year was the AER in the Rebellions and the Kolles car, even cracklier off-throttle than the 430 in that video.

[Alfisti]

Ferrari V12 

 

 

That is so monumentally depressing. It's just right on so many levels compared to the shite we have now. it's wide, fat rear tyres, no weird flip ups and BS aero shite, just a clean looking race car that sounds like it's got a serious temper problem. 

 

I could watch it circulate on it's own. 

[TimRTC]

 

Video would not do this justice. Once you've heard them, nothing else sounds as good.

 

That and you can't hear anything else again. Ever.

 

What?

 

About 4:30pm

[ninetyzero]

That is so monumentally depressing. It's just right on so many levels compared to the shite we have now. it's wide, fat rear tyres, no weird flip ups and BS aero shite, just a clean looking race car that sounds like it's got a serious temper problem. 

 

I could watch it circulate on it's own. 

 

Usually I'm not fussed about the ascetics of mid-nineties cars but that Ferrari is indeed a looker. Also, I much prefer the deeper engine note of the Ferrari V12's to the later V10 screamers (which are over-rated somewhat). This is what an F1 should look and sound like.

[Alfisti]

 

Video would not do this justice. Once you've heard them, nothing else sounds as good.

 

That and you can't hear anything else again. Ever.

 

What?

 

About 4:30pm

 

It's massively impressive no doubt, mind bogglingly impressive as a spectacle. BUT, you cannot enjoy it, it's more like witnessing a nuclear explosion. 

[ezequiel]

Mazda RX-8 GT Daytona

 

 

Chevrolet Turismo Carretera

 

Edited by ezequiel, 24 June 2015 - 20:48.

[realracer200]

Lancia Delta S4

[scheivlak]

This must be at least about the 7th or 8th thread about the topic (TNF included) - use the search function for those earlier ones.

 

Two - very different    - favourites of mine: the screeching early 70s Matra V12 and the whistling Lotus 56B turbine.

[Dan333SP]

If there is one topic I think we can all agree that deserves to be resurrected every year or so, it's this one. I can listen to the same clip of the Ferrari V12 on repeat all day and still get goosebumps at repeat #300.

 

How about this beast?

 

 

I love that it sounds like a highly tuned V8 on approach, and turns to almost a V10 shriek as it passes.

[Dan333SP]

This is my favorite of the current GT lot-

[chunder27]

Such a shame George passed away a few years ago, but his legend lives on with Reito Meisel in his Judd powered Merc and also another guy I think Inzinger?  Who runs a gorgeously intricate E20 BMW with an Indycar engine in it. Some of the Euro hill stuff sounds amazing, I guess coz you get just the one car, the old GpB stuff, the prototypes of Faggioli and the like, the classics and the daft stuff like FIAT 500's on the limit.

 

Sorry to earlier poster, I find the nostalgia section uterly dull, so thought it might be fun to post it on here. And seems a lot of people agree.

[Henri Greuter]

Good to see that it's not just a litany of post 1990 V10, V12 and V8 F1 engines only......

 

 

Nothing to add as to what I like, most of my favorites have been posted already, like the pre 2K Ferrari V12 sportscars, the 917, Matra V12s and BRM V16.

But i also liked the turbocharged V6 F1 engines of 77-88 while the Lancia Delta S4  was also something to behold once ho heard one.

 

And given my history, of course, soundwise the Novi V8 but only with earplugs and earphones because of the noise level....

 

Henri

[Dan333SP]

Of the many thumping American V8-powered sportscars I've heard over the years, the one that still stands out is the Panoz, either the GTR1 or the LMP-

 

 

It was the car I'd have to turn away from and cover my ears when it passed at Sebring and when I saw it at the FIA GT race at Homestead in '98 (yes, I was one of the 20 fans that went to that race). Shook your ribcage with its blaring side exhausts.

[Henri Greuter]

Of the many thumping American V8-powered sportscars I've heard over the years, the one that still stands out is the Panoz, either the GTR1 or the LMP-

 

 

It was the car I'd have to turn away from and cover my ears when it passed at Sebring and when I saw it at the FIA GT race at Homestead in '98 (yes, I was one of the 20 fans that went to that race). Shook your ribcage with its blaring side exhausts.

 

I heard three of those at Le Mans in 1997 and I was praying for these contraptions to retire as quick as possible. Fortunately two did, but the third lasted through the night regrettably.

I don't think there has been any other car ever in my life that I saw race and that actually scared me so much as this one did. So incredibly loud as that thing was.

From what I have understood, one of the drivers of one of thees cars (Butch Leitzinger) has a hearing deficiency that can be traced back to having driven these things.

 

I've read that in the past there was a test at Le Mans in which the exhausts were tested as to their efficiency, at least up til in the very early 60s such a test was done. No way that it could have taken place in 1997 because these Panoz cars could never have passed such a test.....

 

 

Henri

Edited by Henri Greuter, 25 June 2015 - 13:20.

[Dan333SP]

I think in terms of absolute dB and general tonal quality, the Panoz is the loudest car I've ever heard, including any of the F1 cars of the last 20 years or so. I've never seen dragsters in person, though.

 

It's LOUD, but when wearing earplugs I actually like it. It's just so damn impressive and visceral. As far as I know, most tracks in the US actually have a dB limit on race cars now (maybe around 105 dB?), and in the mid/late 2000s the ALMS prototypes started adding mufflers to tone it down (the Acura and Porsche LMP2 cars had them by mid 2007).

[chunder27]

I have to say any kind of nitro-methanol powered machine is simply staggeringly loud.

 

I have seen altereds, TF bikes and TF cars and nothing really prepares you for it.

 

I urge anyone who has never seen one in person to do so, it will simply blow your mind how anything that powerful and visceral can be driven by a man. Don't be a snob abut drag racing, teh tech in these cars at most levels is far more interesting than you think, and the pits are far more friendly, drivers approachable, it really is a great family sport that is far under-rated.

 

You can't just hold your hands over your ears, you have to push your fingers in so loud are they. The ground shakes like a mini earthquake. And I was lucky enough to watch a fueller from behind a run when the shed was still behind the line at Santa Pod, and let me tell you these guys work hard for their corn, dont underestimate their talent either.

 

The preparation, the startup procedure, the burnout. Honestly, other than a shuttle launch or being at a LSR event I can't think of anything more exciting. I wouldn't want to do it every week as it would get samey, but my word what an experience.