LOUD AND CLEAR

Corby, as ever, is on the money with his musings over the race to strip seemingly all cars of great pipes, even the icons such as Porsches (Corby Column, Wheels, October). One of the great things about motorsport and road-going sports cars in general is the personality of the car delivered by the engine/ exhaust note.

A few of us were watching a stage of Targa West recently. The scream of a lightly muffled M3 or GT3 was offset nicely by the howl of a well worked L-series donk in a 240Z or a supercharged Toyota V6 in an Exige.

But then the Tesla roadster comes past, a car sharing its chassis with the aforementioned Exige. Sure, it pushes along quite quickly, but with no sound; well, it’s like watching a dramatic scene in your favourite movie with the sound on mute. Go on, try to watch any film with the sound off for a couple of minutes and you realise just how important the soundtrack is. And it’s the same with cars, I believe, to no lesser an extent.

I guess some of us are just wired to be attracted to noise, smell and speed … but the noise is part of that holy trinity which cannot be separated. Julian, via email