Top 10: Surprisingly Sexy Car Exhaust Notes

I find that, for the most part, cars pretty much sound like what they look like. A Dodge Challenger has that offbeat, staccato dull roar of a huge high-compression V8.  A Honda CRX usually sounds like a weedwhacker on methamphetamines.  A Chrysler Minivan usually sounds like an iron lung patient struggling to jog.  A Ferrari sounds like an angel playing the high notes on a trumpet, yadda yadda etcetera. 

It's true there's something of a "pecking order" when it comes to exhaust sound, and everyone loves an interloper.  Here's my top ten incongruous car exhaust notes - in other words, cars that if they pass by at wide open throttle, might confuse you into thinking it's something else entirely.

10) Oldsmobile Aurora

Well, yes.  On the outside, the Aurora looks like every other boring jellybean shaped mid-ninties domestic sedan.  But if it looks like a shapely lump of coal on the outside, it's got a diamond in the rough under the hood.  Mounted transversely, the 4.0L V8 was just a smaller version of Cadillac's 32v Northstar V8.  It made a healthy (for the time) 250bhp and 260lb-ft of torque - which was 10bhp more but 20lb-ft less than the decidedly lower-tech 3800 Series II Supercharged V6, a pushrod dinosaur tire-annihilator they stuck in everything from the Riviera to the Grand Prix GTP.  While the nifty little 4.0L Northstar may not have had the overall mid-range pull of the old blown six, and it might've been far more expensive to produce, but it had one big advantage: it sounded awesome.  Listen:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvmCoYHh1tU

It certainly doesn't sound like your father's Oldsmobile.

9) BMW (E60) M5

I'm not going to say that the M5 is exactly a stealthy car.  I mean, for one thing it's a large BMW sedan with a bright "M5" badge on the back, big wheels, big exhaust tips, huge air intakes...  but still.  When you see an M5, you expect it to sound like a normal car.  At wide open throttle, it really sounds more like a Formula One car.  It's 5.0L V10 engine produces a mighty 507bhp, with an absolutely astronomical 8,250rpm redline.  Especially with the Eisenhaus F1 exhaust, which you can listen to in the video below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1_OKkZzp4

8) Mazda CX7 Turbo

On the outside, the Mazda CX7 looks like a mild-mannered (if neatly styled) soft-roader SUV thing, the type of vehicle we at CarThrottle love to mercilessly make fun of for being pointless, slow, befuddled in corners, and heavy on gas.  The CX7 actually only fits the last descriptor in the list, though, and it's one of the few "CUV's" that an enthusiast might find amusing.  The secret to this?  Under the hood is Mazda's awesome 2.3 DISI Turbo motor, a direct-injection monster used in the MazdaSpeed (MPS in Europe) 3 and 6.  Although it's power output is restricted in the CX7 (244, compared to 263 with the 3 and 280 with the 6), it's still the real deal - cool top-mount intercooler and all.  And once you put an exhaust system on there, it sounds... well, it sounds like a turbo hot hatch.  Which is pretty cool.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izjv5mUrwlc

7) Ford Explorer (2nd Generation, with 302ci V8)

As the SUV craze blossomed in the mid-ninties, fans of the ubiquitous Ford Explorer cried out for more power, so they wouldn't get their doors blown off by those pesky 4.0L HO Jeep Cherokees.  Ford gave them the V8 Explorer.  Now, it's not exactly the definition of a rocketship, but what's interesting is where the engine came from.  When Ford finally decided that the Mustang deserved a modern, overhead-cam V8 engine, they didn't really know what to do with the torque-rich 302ci (5.0, although actually a 4.9 if you prefer math to histrionics) V8 that had been doing duty in the Mustang GT since... well, somewhere near the beginning of time.  So, into the Explorer it went.  Result: Explorers that sounded like Mustang GT's.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUCo-WLZtA8

6) 2003-2004 Mercury Marauder

To the casual observer, the Marauder looks like a mildly pimped-out version of Mercury's Grandma Cruiser, the Grand Marquis.  And really, that's what it is.  Blacked-out headlights, grille, body molding, blacked-out Police Interceptor Crown Vic taillights, along with a set of showy 18" chrome wheels and a pair of shotgun-like dual exhausts gave the Marauder the kind of street presence that's utterly lacking in the normal GrandMaCruiser.  It's got a secret under the hood, though - instead of the normal, anemic 239bhp single-cam 4.6L V8, sits SVT's twin-cam 32v Mustang Cobra motor, putting out 302 ponies and 318 lb-ft of torque.  That sophisticated multi-valve V8 noise just isn't what you'd expect to be coming out the rear end of a Panther-platform anything, but it's perfectly suited to the Marauder's "New York Gangster" image.  Lovely.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFOlBLQgno

5) Buick Regal Grand National/GNX

The Regal Grand National was a quintessential example of pure GM Muscle.  The formula is old and simple, dating back to when they shoved a triple-carb'd 389 into the midsize Pontiac Tempest and called it the GTO.  The Grand National was an engine bay full of as much explosive horsepower as could be fitted into GM's G-body platform, which was what underpinned everything from the El Camino to the Oldsmobile Cutlass and Pontiac Grand Prix.  Instead of a big chest-thumping V8, though, Buick went a different route:  the classic 231ci Buick V6, plus multi-point fuel injection, plus a big honking exhaust-driven spinny muffler equalled 200bhp and 300lb-ft of torque.  In 1984, that meant that Grandma's loaded Regal (remember, the 3.8 SFI Turbo was also available in the vinyl-roofed T-Type... extra sleeper!) could smoke the obnoxious neighbor's new 'Vette from a stoplight.  Power jumped to 245 and then later 250 with the addition of an air-to-air intercooler, and there was also the limited-build 4.6s 0-60 GNX, which commands obscene amounts of money these days.  The Grand National was Darth Vader on wheels, a whistling, grumbling turbocharged rocketship in dowdy Buick duds.  The fact that it sounded fantastic was merely a side benefit of the GN's overall epicness.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lzqI7wvZvU

4) MG ZT260

Right before MG/Rover went under and sold out to the lowest bidder in China, they produced two final - and utterly epic - automobiles.  One was the super-exotic SV and SV-R Coupes, based on the defunct Qvale (nee DeTomaso) Mangusta, which was sort of like a more crudely-built TVR, with a choice of nasty Mustang powertrains.  The other was perhaps weirder:  in the sunset years of the Rover 75/ MG ZT chassis, Rover decided that it needed to be a bit more rear wheel drive, and a bit more V8-powered.  So they dialed up British rally experts Prodrive, who did the legwork of shoehorning in a 4.6L SOHC Mustang V8, as well as setting up the chassis for RWD.  The result was the polar opposite of the dull, gutless FWD ZT's, which came with some weak diesels, a weak gas four-cylinder, and a pretty weak 2.5L V6 with wrong-wheel-drive.  The cool thing is, the ZT 260 (RWD) looked exactly the same as the regular ZT, save for a set of quad tailpipes.  And sounded like a thundering Mustang GT.  So cool.  Bonus points for the ultra-rare Rover 75 V8 version, of which a handful over 100 units were produced.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqZZfXdm7D0

3) Toyota Corolla XRS (9th Generation)

Let's do some quick word association exercises, okay?  I say "Jeep Wrangler."  You say "Offroad."  Ok?  I say "Audi R8."  You say "exotic supercar."  Now, let's try one more.  I say "Corolla."  You say... "Boring."

There are many positive attributes of Toyota's nothingmobile, like great resale value, reliability, fuel mileage, cheap to insure....  But nothing that people who like cars actually care about.  So that's why the Corolla XRS (made from 2005 to 2006) makes so little sense.  The stuck the snore-inducing 1.8L 1ZZ-FE in the trashbin, and stuck in the hotter 2ZZ-GE engine.  This motor, which was mostly developed by Yamaha, is the same one that powers the manic Celica GT-S coupes, not to mention the Lotus Elise.  It was slightly de-tuned in XRS trim, but it still produced 170bhp at an "are you serious?" 7500rpm, and a "why bother?" 125lb-ft of torque at 4400rpm.  It was mated exclusively to a close-ratio 6 speed manual gearbox, and provided the kind of Jekyll and Hyde powerband that approximately zero Corolla owners were looking for.  The XRS ultimately fell on deaf ears, as people that wanted that kind of performance didn't want a Corolla - and people that wanted a Corolla didn't care about that kind of performance.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AfNIu5mldI

Still, the banzai cam changeover at 6500rpm, howling intake noise, and sophisticated multi-valve high-rpm yowl all combine to make a pudgy Corolla sound like an exotic Lotus.  So it definitely fits.

2) Dodge (Neon) SRT-4

I feel compelled to place the original SRT-4 on every top ten list of interlopers of some variety, and the reason for that is because it's awesome.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but the SRT-4 is the ultimate modern example of the classic musclecar formula.  At it's core, it was the idea of putting as much possible horsepower into the smallest, cheapest chassis in the manufacturer's stable.  While modern muscle cars have gotten bigger, and sprouted sound deadening and expensive stuff like independent rear suspension and satnav, the SRT-4 did it right.  You can tell that about 90% of the SRT-4's development budget was spent under the hood.  The 2.0L 16v fruit thresher got tossed, and in went a "big block" 2.4L 16v motor shared with the minivans and PT Cruiser (ugh.)  And then they pressurized it with a huge turbocharger, breathing in cool air through perhaps the largest stock intercooler ever.  It was raucous, unrefined, and utterly badass: a Grand National for the 00's.

Mopar claimed 215 crank BHP, but the dyno's said "bullsh*t."  Sport Compact Car measured 223whp (wheel horsepower) on a production SRT-4, meaning it was making more at the wheels than the maker claimed at the crank. Oh, and it had no mufflers.  So it spitted, burbled, backfired, popped, and sounded like a racecar.  It could run with 350Z's and Mustang GT's for 2/3 the price, and that was stock.  And you know how often SRT-4's stay stock.

The piper had to be paid, though: you were still starting with a Neon, which is a pretty wretched car.  There were electric windows on the front and window winders on the back, the stereo wasn't loud enough to hear over the engine, you couldn't even go 300 miles between fillups, but...  who cares?  For less than 20k, nothing could keep up with an SRT-4.

And ohh, the sound.  Awesome.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsiVU-fvDU

1) Smartuki!

There is just simply no other choice for the podium finisher in this list.  A Smartuki is the general name given to a Smart Car with a motorcycle engine swap, but there are other brands - Diablo Smart comes to mind as well.  These kits ditch the tiny, pokey Mercedes 3-cylinder engine and dim-witted automated manual gearbox for an ultra-high output motorcycle engine.  Most common choices are the 1000cc Suzuki GSX-R 1000 engine, or the Suzuki GSX1300R Hayabusa superbike motor.  This usually has the effect of doubling or tripling the horsepower and the rev-range of the Smart, which turns it into a seriously quick car, when you consider how little a stripped-out Smart Car weighs.

Watch the video below, and honestly tell me if your eyes believe your ears.  I had to watch it a few times for it to click.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84e4Cl5naZI

Oh, and did I mention that some of these kits place the motor in the true middle  of the chassis, ie where the passenger seat normally sits?  Can you imagine the racket?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdJ84nho3_k

If only there was room to mention the '80's Chrysler Turbo minivans, or the mid-80's Mustang SVO with it's Thunderbird Turbocoupe motor, or the 32v V8 Lincoln MkVIII LSC...  And the Cadillac Deville Concours....  and also the five-valve Corolla Levin's (AE111).  Maybe 10 choices just aren't enough?  Well, they never are.

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