By Colby Buchanan
The Carrera GT is one of those cars that you don’t really get to see that often but when you do it’s a real treat. And if you’re really lucky you’ll see it moving/thundering down a street. Now I know this title might be very controversial considering the Lexus LFA, Lamborghini Murcielago, and lest we forget the Dodge Viper exist, but I really think the GT takes the cake. The exhaust note is so harmonious and balanced that it always puts me in a good mood.
Overall I feel like the Carrera GT is such an underrated and forgotten car. The manual transmission with a proper mid-engine Porsche is epic and very well designed. Yes, the other candidates are amazing as well but there’s something special about the GT. Do you think I’m far off or have your own V10 king that wasn’t mentioned?
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Our Camry’s inspection is coming up and I felt a need to do something very simple to reestablish car mastery. Hence, front lights that won’t irk any safety inspector, before:
https://i.ibb.co/4MnkvQb/IMG-20200920-182750.jpg
And after:
https://i.ibb.co/17dvnQz/IMG-20200920-182820.jpg
I think the LFA sounds nicer, but it’s subjective. Anyway, those are just road cars, remember in the early 00’s when most the F1 grid ran NA V10s? F1 hasn’t sounded as good since.
I agree. And I like the sound of the Audi R8 V10 even better, though I prefer V8s by a huge margin. I generally don’t like the screaming, high-pitched whine that comes with higher cylinder counts.
Murcielago was a V12. Gallardo and Huracan won’t hold it against you … much!
Sounds like a giant motorcycle, which is okay I guess. To me, nothing sounds better than a regular ol’ American V8. I’m a sucker for a 289 4V with big pipes.
And is that Samwise Gamgee in the Porsche’s passenger seat?
I dunno, I think the Carrera GT (and the LFA, for that matter, although I do think it sounds cool) are a little TOO smooth. I like the offbeat kind of sound you get from an I-5 or a V-10, but I prefer when there’s a bit more rasp to it, and I think you get a bit more of that with a Lamborghini or an R8, or a Viper.
Yeah, the Lambo/R8 and Viper engines are 90-degree V10s because I think they were developed by adding cylinders to existing V8 designs. V10s are inherently unbalanced anyway, but at 90 degrees they fire unevenly, so they sound a bit rougher. The LFA’s engine was designed from scratch to be 72 degrees, which is ideal for a V10 because it minimizes (but doesn’t eliminate) vibration and allows for even firing and a smoother sound. I’m not sure about the angle of Porsche’s V10, but I would guess it’s not a 90-degree engine.
Like you, I prefer the “rougher” V10 sound, not that of the high-revving screamers.
Huh, I didn’t consider the vee-angle…er, angle…but that makes a lot of sense!
When the current Viper was new, I went to a race at Mid Ohio which I think was the race Viper’s debut. The Corvettes, Ferraris and Porches sounded fantastic but the Vipers sounded terrible. Throaty but rough like it wasn’t running properly.