OPINION “I’d have been able to figure this out in a heartbeat 20 years ago, but big-motor sedans have become such an endangered species, and powertrains so homogenized, that I just can’t” y skills are waning – I can’t identify a blurred car by its sound. An odd request came in from a friend this week. She wanted help to identify the people who stole her son’s brand-new Ford Ranger. I’d normally be all in favor of people stealing the world’s unnecessary, cosplay SUVs and 1-ton pickups, but only if they then crushed them or shipped them to tradespeople or farmers in more impoverished countries. However, I quite like my friends. I know. Life is all about how you manage goal conflict, as Bob Lutz once told me. Thing is, this gang was organized enough to have three youths on foot in the early hours, trying to break into houses in their search for keys, while another waited for them in a large, four-door sedan. One of the neighbors’ security cameras caught them, and even captured the sound of the sedan firing up and departing, in a very unstealthy manner. And it’s infuriating me that I can’t identify the type of car, by either its shape or the sound of its engine. This thing made a deep, potent sound, intensified by what is clearly some manner of aftermarket enloudenator plumbing, and it’s not slightly off-beat lumpy, like any of the LS motors. That rules out a Holden Commodore (well, that, and the fact that they’ve been out of production for a few years now) and any other GM product. I’ve ruled out Audi, just because RS6 sedans are very rare beasts and S8s are hen’s-teeth rare, which leaves just a BMW M5 or an E-Class AMG, if we want to stick mit zee Germans. But it didn’t much sound like either of those, nor did the tail-lights – sitting very high on the lid of the trunk, almost to the point of the actual line of the trunk itself – seem to fit. And I’m really struggling to think what other large, d-or e-segment V8 there is out there, other than a luxury Lexus, that would fit the bill. But who puts aftermarket enloudenators on Lexii? Who even makes such things? There’s also Maserati, but if you have enough cash to maintain a Quattroporte in peak getaway-car fettle, you don’t need to steal cars to make a living. Now, there was a time when I could identify any high-performance engine by the sound it made, from just about any remove. First, I got a rough handle on revs, then whether it was a pushrod or a real engine, then whether or not it had a flat-plane crank. I loved induction noise, especially if the things doing all the air sucking were Michael Taylor M ABOVE: Big capacity atmo engines with soul are a rarity in modern saloons Webers, but induction noise would now only help to identify whether or not a car is eligible for a registration discount or a pensioner card. Induction noise was, for a time, replaced by supercharger whine or turbocharger whistles, but both of those stamps of character have been developed out of modern engines. Turbo engines don’t much change timbre as the revs rise, but they do sound deeper than they once did. Still, most big turbo motors these days begin loud and the only thing that changes with revs is the volume. Now it’s more about artificially creating character with pops and crackles and sound tubes and speakers in the cabin, because there are so few atmo cars out there now. Those V10 Audi motors are always a treat, and still easy to identify, except for that RS6 whose engine was made from Riedel crystal wine glasses and is so outrageously expensive to repair that it can’t physically be driven far enough for anyone to hear it. The sound I most often hear them make is the tackatackatacka of the diesel flatbed that takes them away so garages can make the cha-ching sound they love so much. This scenario is especially infuriating as, with so many misguided souls believing they’ll cross the Sahara at some point in their current lease, sedans are thin on the ground. It should be easy, but I’m stumped. I’d have been able to figure this out in a heartbeat 20 years ago, but big-motor sedans have become such an endangered species, and powertrains so homogenized, that I just can’t. And that makes me sad. 26 Automotive Powertrain Technology International.com / January 2024