madcorgi

People too often use that declaration, but it strikes me that we truly are reaching the end of an era with respect to cars. Normally aspirated cars are becoming extinct.

Porsche 911s are all turbos now. With the exception of the GT3 and other specialty cars, so is the high winding normally aspirated big flat six. The shriek of the NA is replaced by the honk of the turbo.

My other favorite car company, BMW, is now pretty much all turbo now too. The E92 M3's incredible 8250 rpm V8 gave way to a turbo six in the F80 generation cars. They honk too, as I discovered tonight when a guy in an F80 decided we were racing at a light. I was in my E92 M3 and was unaware the gauntlet was cast. Even had I been in the game, my car's modest 414 hp would have been no match for his 500 or so, plus the fat turbo torque down low.

The honking turbos are, I suspect, merely a way stop on our journey to utterly soulless electric and then self-driving cars.

So we go from shriek to honk to hum. Sort of the way my sex life has as I've gotten older.