You’ve taken in the sights of MotorTrend 2019 Best Driver’s Car—the hills around Route 198, the curves of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and of course, the edges, wings, and contours of the planet’s finest performance metal. But you’re still missing out on the sounds. Between our 12 contenders were 86 cylinders, 18 turbochargers, and two superchargers, firing a cacophonous symphony out of 36 combined exhaust tips. As they lined up for World’s Greatest Drag Race 9, each revved freely, announcing its intent to demolish the runway ahead.
With no correlation to final finishing order, we’ve ranked the cars from worst to best sounding. Watch and listen for yourself—do you agree with how we’ve placed them?
12th Place: Porsche 911 Carrera S
Our overall winner is also the worst-sounding car here. How could that be? The 911’s distinctive flat-six engine historically makes a wonderful rasp, but that changed when Porsche decided to make the controversial shift from natural aspiration to turbocharging across (most of) the range. While that altered the engine’s power for the better, sound was a casualty. It’s wheezy, flat, and uninspiring. Basically, the opposite of what it’s like to drive.
11th Place: Bentley Continental GT V8
Sorry, can you speak up? Any Bentley’s focus is on luxury; it would be uncouth for one to come across as brash and boisterous. But for a car with red badges, quad exhaust tips, and a 3.3-second 0–60 sprint, it’s too quiet. Perhaps that’s by design and part of the Bentley experience, but on the basis of great sound alone, it’s not enough.
10th Place: Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4Matic+
The AMG GT 4-Door tries to be two cars in one: a stiff, track-focused sports car and a comfortable, family-friendly sedan. At one end it wants to crush apexes, on the other it needs to make the school run without scaring a bunch of kids. Its exhaust sound seems to suffer accordingly, coming across as a performance-tuned V-8, but too quiet to be appreciated. Forgettable, perhaps, much like the driving experience.
9th Place: Lamborghini Urus
The Urus is a hoot to drive, and eats up tarmac like no SUV has a right to. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound great. That might be forgiven, considering it’s Lamborghini’s first V-8 car in quite some time, and its first turbocharged model ever—maybe Sant’Agata is still figuring out the formula. Still, for a company known to create utterly earsplitting V-10 and V-12 supercars, we want more music from this high-riding bull.
8th Place: Toyota GR Supra
On its own, the Supra sounds pretty good, with a malicious exhaust sound accompanied by plenty of pops and backfires. In this lineup, though, it’s not soulful or stirring enough to rank any higher than this.
Want more 2019 Best Driver’s Car content on the Supra, Mustang Shelby GT350, Urus, and the rest of the BDC fleet? Get the full story HERE, and watch all the Best Driver’s Car videos you can handle HERE.
7th Place: BMW M2 Competition
A great-sounding inline-six is a glorious thing, and the M2 has one. Its crackles on overrun produce cackles by the driver. Still, we can’t help but think it sounds like it’s got some, um, dietary instability emanating from its backside. We’ve all been there, lil’ BMW.
6th Place: Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye
This monstrosity has a weird problem, in that it sounds better from the front than the back. See, its massive supercharger produces a terrifying whine at the intake, one that sounds hellish and demonic as befits its name. But as the car powers past, that shriek is drowned out by the exhaust, which sounds good, but not as good as you’d expect from 797 hp.
5th Place: McLaren Senna
The top-exit exhaust tips of this aerodynamic missile are just so damn cool. It makes a great sound; its flat-plane crank V-8 is hardly compromised by the two turbochargers. The Senna’s all-out focus on performance comes across in the noise it makes, which is to say, perhaps lacking dimension. But when it’s pinning you into the seat, that’s not something you care much about.
4th Place: BMW M850i xDrive
Wafting around in the M850i, the driver is treated to a subtle V-8 chop that’s more felt than heard. But as revs rise, this big Bimmer makes a throaty, aggressive sound that’s unadulterated V-8 excellence. It pops and bangs plenty, and it’s perfectly suited for its sporty-GT raison d’être.
3rd Place: Ford Shelby Mustang GT350
The GT350 hits every note. At idle it’s pure American V-8, burbling and growling like a proper muscle car. But that flat-plane crankshaft enables an astronomical redline, and as revs rise it crescendos toward a screaming din that seems to only climb higher and higher. The exhaust note is a key factor of what makes this car so awesome and helped it earn its second-place overall finish.
2nd Place: Aston Martin DBS Superleggera
Nothing sounds like a V-12—nothing. The one in the DBS Superleggera produces a smooth, raspy bark that simply delights the ears. Its sound adds to the sense of occasion from startup to shutdown, no matter what speed is reached in between. We wish there were more V-12s out there in the world, if only so we could hear them more frequently.
1st Place: Jaguar XE SV Project 8
Take shelter—the exhaust sound of the Project 8 is entirely weapons-grade. Its V-8 sounds mighty on rev-up, but as the tach drops back to idle an unending assault of backfires shoots out from its four exhaust cannons. As if that wasn’t enough to terrify innocent passers-by, its shrieking supercharger mimics an air-raid siren on blast. How is this thing street-legal?
The post Ranked: The Exhaust Sounds of 2019 Best Driver’s Car appeared first on MotorTrend.
Source: WORLD NEWS
