Some cars are legends in their own right because of their accomplishments on the track, or because they looked good, or because they featured new technology. The BRM V16 Mk 2 is a legend simply because of how it sounds.
We may have featured this glorious noise before, but I can't get enough of it. Originally featured as a track on the album accompanying the Nick Mason-and-Mark Hales-authored Into the Red, the supercharged 1.5 liter V16 in this 1953 Formula One car put out 600 horsepower at 12,000 RPM.
Yeah. I'll write that again for you. One point five liters, sixteen cylinders, six hundred horsepower, at twelve thousand revolutions per minute. Oh, and it's supercharged. And all of it goes through those skinny little 1950s tires in the back.
I've weirdly had this track on my iPod for years now, to the point where I'm not sure where I got it from. There's a reason, though, it's never left my playlist. Those 16 mad little cylinders hammering away present an absolute symphony, starting as a deep, low, snarling growl and surging up into the screaming wail of a banshee. And all of it was created without the silly computers nowadays they use to make artificial sounds.
As an added, bonus, you can hear people in the background tinkering away, putting you right into the era.
Do yourself a favor, and don't listen to this through crappy laptop speakers. Use something with a subwoofer, maybe a 5.1 surround system. Or headphones, at the very least. You'll thank me.
And if you can't sit through the full 7:36 version, the highlight reel only lasts about a minute: