Am I getting old, or are loud exhausts becoming cringeworthy?

A big noise from a nice car would once have sparked joy, but now it's like a cry for help

Who has changed: me or the car world? Because I recently saw some video clips of noisy vehicles and instead of thinking ‘phwoar’, as I once would have, I thought ‘ugh’.

The first clip was of an Apollo Intensa Emozione hypercar downshifting as it approached a junction. It was a fairly urban junction, which I don’t think was beneficial to the charitableness of my attitude.

I mean, sure, nice engine, big sound, all terrific – unless of course you’ve got a napping child or you’re trying to concentrate on literally anything that wouldn’t be affected by a hundred decibels of explosion noises being piped through your windows.

The second clip was a comparison of two aftermarket Ferrari exhausts, captioned “which sounds better?”, to which the younger enthusiast in me would have picked either but which made today’s me wonder why they couldn’t have just left it alone.

I’d been putting off replacing an exhaust on my old motorbike, too, until I finally had to recently. Honda no longer makes original-equipment ones and I’d been worried that an aftermarket can would be louder. Thankfully, one I have found isn’t.

The thing is, I actually like the sounds of engines. They’re some of my favourite sounds that machines make. I’ve sat in Lamborghinis and Ferraris and put their windows or roofs down so I can hear them that little bit better.

A Porsche flat six as it approaches 9000rpm makes me tingle and I would prefer to put a six-cylinder Honda Goldwing engine in the back of my Hillman Imp over a four-cylinder BMW engine. So what has changed?

In simple terms, I don’t think other people need to hear it. The loudest exhausts, particularly when attached to the most flamboyant cars, are just a cry for attention. It’s like walking down the street yelling: “Look at me, look at me, I’ve got lots of money and an annoying hobby and you should look at me!”

To which the rational answer would be: “No, mate. Why don’t you take your hobby and do one?”

When some people don’t like what you do anyway, why go out of your way to annoy them with it?

A few weeks ago, I was early for a meeting in London so sat down in a park. About 500 metres away, I could hear a sports bike with an aftermarket can being needlessly revved. ‘That’s annoying,’ I thought. And I’m someone who likes cars and driving.

So what do those who are ambivalent or actively dislike them think? We do ourselves no favours.

*Prep is key*

I’ve just spent a couple of weeks on road-trippy holidays that involved driving 2000 miles in a Skoda Kamiq and then riding another 1250 on my old Honda Africa Twin.

I spent a bit of time making sure that I had every piece of paperwork, roadside assistance details and hardware (hi-vis vests, warning triangles etc) for driving on the continent in the car – and it was utterly faultless.

Then I hopped directly on the motorbike, approaching 80,000 miles old – and it actually turned out to be the same.

But I was alarmed by a clonking noise at low speeds, which I began to notice in the middle of Scotland. This, I thought, could be very inconvenient and expensive. It played on my mind every time I got on the bike.

I couldn’t find the source of it, even after a few attempts, so I spent 10 minutes downloading The AA’s smartphone app and digging out my registration details and making sure it was all in order.

Hey presto: if the clonk didn’t go away entirely, I certainly noticed it less. Like taking an umbrella with you if you don’t want it to rain, clearly the best way to sort iffy mechanicals is to have a back-up plan.