El sonido de un Porsche Revving sus carros de carreras

Usually I get evil glares from disapproving olds for revving my engine in public, but my car doesn’t sound nearly as nice as Porsche’s collection—and I certainly don’t have a professional sound crew pointed at my tailpipe. Every year, Porsche hosts Sound Nacht to rev its historic and significant cars for a crowd. 

The Porsche Museum had a sell-out crowd of 1,000 visitors to hear cars rev and some of the marque’s legendary drivers talk about them last month, according to a Porsche press release. Best of all, they brought out a little bit of everything from Porsche’s long, storied and utterly insane history or racing. 

Not going to lie, I could listen to this all day. It’s music. 

If Porsche insists upon naming the Boxster after the 718, they pretty much have to whip out the original 718 RS 60 Spyder out for some delightful revving. The RS 60 was an update to the 718 made for new FIA regulations in 1960. One went on to win Targa Florio that year. Here’s the 1962 Porsche 804 Formula One car, which sounds eight trillion times better than a modern-day F1 car. That lovely flat-eight engine’s 180 horsepower doesn’t sound like enough to modern ears, but it was plenty at the time. This car was responsible for Porsche’s only F1 wins as a chassis constructor, both with Dan Gurney behind the wheel. This 911 SC was rallied by Walter Röhrl and co-driver Christian Geistdörfer at the 1981 San Remo Rally, but sadly a broken drive shaft forced them to retire from second place. Porsche since restored the car, which Röhrl ran at Targa Tasmania in 2011 and also introduced at this year’s Sound Nacht. It wouldn’t be a Porsche party without the Porsche 919 Hybrid showing up—the marque’s latest and greatest Le Mans-winning, FIA World Endurance Championship-dominating prototype.

I don’t think its throaty, poppy roar was meant for the art of the parking lot rev, but I’d love to be obnoxious with it if they’d let me. This Group C Porsche 956 Coupé endurance racing prototype fared a little better at the standing rev than its modern counterpart.

Listen to that turbocharged flat-six growl. The No. 2 919 wasn’t the only Le Mans winner of Sound Nacht, as it was joined by the Porsche 936/77, which won the 1977 24 Hours of Le Mans.

With a turbocharged flat-six, the Martini-liveried car sounds as good as it looks.

A Porsche evening of fine exhaust notes is not complete with a 935, and this “Moby Dick” 935/78 is easily the best-sounding whale ever.

Like many of Porsche’s other historic racers, it has a turbo flat-six, which big whooshing noises as its turbo spools up. It takes its whale of a name from its long tail, meant to optimize its aerodynamics. Last but not least, there was the Porsche 924 Carrera, which was perhaps the biggest surprise.

The 924 too often gets written off as too cheap, and too Audi, but one listen to that menacing growl coming out of its Le Mans-spec tailpipe should shut the haters up.

This turbo 2.0-liter 924 still wears its decal from the 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans. Several other Porsche models also showed up to Sound Nacht, including the new 911 R and 718 Boxster. I’ll bet they weren’t as loud as these classics, though.