The V8 is a classic engine configuration with a classic accepted noise, but there are actually a ton of different sounds that you can get out of eight cylinders in a vee.
There are big V8s and little V8s. There are lumpy cam low-idle V8s and flat plane high-rev V8s. You can find them with open headers and eight-into-one tubular exhausts. Some have superchargers, others have turbos.
And these all have very different sounds.
But I think we can all agree that the ones that sound the best are the ones that sound like Planet Earth is being pulled apart at its seams, and a rumbling, hissing, torrent of death is about to engulf your pitiful existence.
So which V8 do you think sounds the most like that?
Photo Credit: Mercedes-Benz. Pictured is the Mercedes M119 twin-turbo V8 that powered the Sauber C9 and Mercedes C11 prototypes that took on Le Mans in 1989 and ‘90. Listen to it thunder below.
Not bad, huh?
Contact the author at raphael@jalopnik.com.