If an air conditioner makes a ton of noise, we don’t think “power”, we think “inefficiency”. The same goes with washing machines; if a lot of noise comes out of them, that indicates lots of lost energy that, through more careful engineering, could have resulted in clean clothes in shorter time and lower energy bills.

And, to fulfill the imaginary requirement for an arbitrary third example, we don’t associate a noisy computer with more processing power. When a laptop sounds like there’s a jet going overhead, that usually means that it’s time to clean the dust out of its fan.

So then, why does anyone still hold on to the misguided notion that a noisier car means a more powerful, effective vehicle? My guess is that there are still a few people around whose primitive minds are stuck in the early fifties, where a loud revving sound indicated a more powerful automobile.

These are the chimps who drive down residential streets making sure that their cars let out a loud roar, because they want everyone to know that they are fast, and they have the car noisy enough to prove it.

The sad truth is, they’re not really impressing anyone. I can tell you what people around them think when they tear off near elementary schools. It would sound something like this:

How annoying. I want to put a bullet right in his tires. If he had the money, why didn’t he buy a better-sounding car?

A noisy car is the sound of inefficiency. I know what some of you are thinking: “But Raizen, if cars can be made that run quieter, why don’t they make those?” You know those Mustangs that meatheads like so much? They actually can run quietly. That revving sound that you sometimes hear from them? It comes from speakers in the car. The engineers didn’t want to sacrifice performance, but still wanted those meatheads to enjoy the sweet, sweet sound of an ancient and poorly-maintained jalopy, so they faked it. That Mustang effect is actually more like a Bose effect.

Even sadder still is the fact that some people spend tons of money to mod their cars so that they sound inefficient and annoying. Intentionally. They’ve got all this money for modification to their automobile, and the intention of the modification isn’t to substantially increase the performance of their car, it’s to produce a sound to the satisfaction of only themselves.

As frivolous as that is, the modding community does do even worse. Some mod their cars so they can achieve some ridiculous top speeds. Two hundred miles per hour? Give me a break. When is a person going to go 200 MPH, even ignoring the fact that a person would have to break the law to do so? What justifies putting huge piles of money into achieving a benchmark that’s not even legal to attain? In cities and suburbs, one must come to a complete stop too often for achieving a high speed to even be practical. So, no one should care whether your car can go really fast, including you.

To ensure that their cars look like they go fast, they also throw money into aesthetics, such as flame decals, racing stripes, all that stuff that helps them live out that Speed Racer fantasy.

Nothing says “spraypaint” quite like gold hubcaps, right?

The best car is the most dependable one, and that would be the one that doesn’t spontaneously break down when you go out to get groceries. This is most easily achieved by buying something modern and efficient, and not letting a bunch of kids monkey around with it.