Tastes in engine exhaust notes are as subjective as your preference in pizza. That said, it's one thing to grow fond of the sound your 25-year-old Honda Civic makes when it gets a rust hole in its catalytic converter. But there's a handful of cars globally with exhaust notes as prolific as the vehicles themselves.
From strictly a personal point of view, and for the sake of a little fun, let's take a deep dive into both the Lexus LFA and the Shelby GT350R. These are my two favorite sounding cars in the 130 years of the internal combustion engine. Bound only by exhaust notes that legitimately make grown men weep, the LFA and the Shelby are brethren for this sole reason.
As you've noticed, this is somewhat of an arbitrary and ham-fisted comparison from my brain and mine alone. But let's look at some of the nuts and bolts of both cars to see why they're similar in some respects and polar opposites in others.
The Lexus LFA was meant to be Toyota's finest passenger vehicle to date. One with a ferocious development cycle. Toyota postponed production and started from scratch more than once to achieve the world's most refined supercar goal.
Each of the 500 Lexus LFAs ever built is a machine made with engineering tolerances that'd make NASA blush. With its carbon fiber-polymer monocoque chassis, complete with a body containing carbon fiber and aluminum alloy, the LFA set its sights squarely at Ferrari, Lamborghini, and the upper-crust supercar establishment.
The LFA drove into battle against the European supercar hoard sporting a 72-degree bank angle 4,805cc (4.8-liter) naturally aspirated V10 engine dubbed the LR-series. With internal wizardry courtesy of Yamaha's motorcycle/automotive division, this engine jetted 552 hp (560 ps) at 8,700 rpm and 354 lb-ft (480 Nm) of torque at 6,800 rpm.
Even without the benefit of a split-journal crankshaft like many other sports cars, the LFA's V10 sang with all the enthusiasm of a dog who's spent the last two days staring at the backyard, waiting for the sun to come out. Only to have the back patio door slide open with every stomp of your right foot on the LFA's gas pedal.
Throaty snarls and high-pitched wales as the LFA's engine screams from idle to 9,000 rpm in little more than half a second. The howls from two banks of cylinders sporting Toyota's VVT-i valve timing system work in the same spirit as V-tec in their rival Honda's engines. Still, one has to admit the LFA makes a Civic with its resonators removed sound uncivilized and juvenile by comparison.
To say the LFA's engine sounded alive, profound, and even a tad emotional would be an understatement. Each blip of the car's lightning-quick Aisin-sourced six-gear automated transmission elicited a roar from the car's triple exhaust pipes that almost mimicked a caged, wounded animal. The LFA's V10 is the type of engine that, apart from a few occasions, will not be replicated ever again.
One of those few exceptions happens to be my other favorite-sounding car ever built. That would be the 2015 through 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350. More specifically, the more track-focused GT350R variant. Like the Lexus LFA, the third-generation Shelby Mustang GT350 is a bonafide driving enthusiast's car through and through.
But the manner by which Shelby turned the GT350 and GT350R into street legends is demonstrably different from that of the LFA. There weren't any last-minute plans to scrap the car and start from scratch, as was the case with Toyota and the LFA. But that didn't mean Mustangs of old didn't have their issues.
Since the early 1990s, Ford's counted on a reliable old friend to power their high-performance Mustangs. Although, you wouldn't know it from looking under the hood of one of these Shelbys. Whether you're dealing with the old SN-95 SVT Cobras, Mach 1s, 5.0-liter Coyote units, and even the monstrous 5.2-liter Voodoo V8 in the GT350. All trace their roots back to a single overhead cam, two-valve per cylinder, Modular Ford V8 found in everything from Lincoln Town Cars to Ford Crown Victorias and even some F-150 trucks and Mercury/Lincoln SUVs.
This notion shouldn't lend itself to one of the best-sounding vehicles in American history. But what Shelby managed to pull off with such a polarizing foundation is nothing short of a miracle. With 526 screaming, rampaging ponies (533 ps) at its disposal with 429 lb-ft (582 Nm) of torque, the GT350R's flat-plane crankshaft makes for an engine note rivaled, at least in my opinion, only by the Lexus LFAs.
Small wonder Ford purportedly purchased a Ferrari California to study its flat-plane-crank V8 in preparation for a similar system's use in the GT350. We certainly won't challenge this because California has a wonderful exhaust note in itself. But where the Lexus LFA's exhaust note resembles what you'd hear being sucked into a black hole, the GT350 was like the same black hole spewing its guts out in a giant quasar.
So to say, there's something utterly guttural, something undeniably visceral about the throaty scream the GT350 shouts out. If the LFA was precise like a surgeon's drill, the Shelby was like a chainsaw. Brutish, intimidating, and seemingly honed with stone-age engine hardware. But make no mistake. The Voodoo engine is no old taxi cab or police cruiser motor.
If you ask us, the Ford Voodoo V8 deserves a rightful place in the engine note Hall of Fame we just made up in our heads right alongside the LFA. But which of the two would you rather have in your driveway? Well, at least in 2023, the Lexus LFA is a seven-figure car every day of the week. You could buy a whole fleet of Shelbys for that kind of money.
But therein lies the real genius of the gen-III Shelby GT350. It's supercar quick with handling like a car three or four times its price with a foundation that's the same as a V6 rental car. Admittedly, that does help keep prices low.
With that in mind, which would you pick to take home? Oh, and what's your favorite-sounding internal combustion car ever manufactured? Let us know in the comments down below.
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