Seattle, I hope and have the feeling that you just want a serious discussion about that issue!

If you DON'T care about squealing doors, a well set-up housing or a certain attractiveness of your wife and even your car, only then I accept that you might not care about the issue of sound design.

This research branch wasn't important a few decades ago, there were only cars that sounded well and the ones that sounded bad. Alfas and Ferraris just as much as Porsches and BMW belonged to the first ones - it wouldn't be an issue to design a car with almost no engine noise at all. Try a electric car or maybe a luxury sedan - even in these cars a certain amount of engine note is audible under heavy acceleration.
It would be weird if sportscar wouldn't sound like sportscars anymore, and to be precise the Boxster is said to be the first car that was quieter on the out- than on the inside!

An aircooled flat-six doesn't sound like a watercooled one - one of the reasons Porsche turned to the later was because of noise regulations which can be controlled much better in a water-insulated engine than in an aircooled one! Same goes for Harley-Davidson and I suspect most of you guys are informed that Porsche helped out on the development of H-D's new water-cooled V2!

If you complain about sound design you should also complain about car design in general! Just because it doesn't bother you doesn't mean it doesn't bother other customers - and considering the response on the first 996s' exhaust note just shows that!

The point is that we would rather like to be cheated than experiencing the real thing:

Wonderbras and other breast-enhancing devises, lipstick and other make-up are just as much of a "rip-off" as

exhaust and even door closing sounds on cars!


The Euro-spec Toyota Corolla even uses balance weights in the doors to achieve a more solid and vault-like feel!
By the way, if sound design is ridiculous, what is a sport exhaust all about?