The best sounding rally car in the world?
Current WRC machines may not sound as glorious as those belonging to the 1980s or earlier – instead of Ferrari’s engines in Lancia Stratos we now have 1.6 liter turbo fours with a slightly different kind of noise. Some say current cars’ engine noise is underwhelming, but it still does its job better than that coming from the V6-powered Formula 1 cars. Out of many things we could hope to see improved or slightly tuned, engine noise isn’t really the top priority.
That is until you hear this here thing. The car looks like your ordinary Peugeot 20x, a regular sight on many events all over Europe. But this is no ordinary Peugeot. Under its skin lies a Formula Renault engine. As you can imagine, the sound is absolutely captivating and once you hear this (you don’t even have to see it), you’ll immediately think current WRC cars’ biggest problem is not having an engine that sounds like this. Trying to put all those horsies, and apparently there’s 450 of them, to good and effective use is another story, but that noise…
The car belongs to Alex Kelsey and if you have a spare minute or 360, do a search on Youtube and enjoy.
EDIT: Thanks to Jase, who runs a rallying website A Little Bit Sideways in New Zealand, here’s a link to an interesting feature about this fascinating car. Although I prefer the efforts behind it, far more fascinating when you realize what can be achieved with enthusiasm and hard work.
