Time for a quick RANT over the misuse of the humble exhaust pipe.
It appears that the exhaust has gone from a quiet little hidden device to an object of SHOCK & AWE!
When I was a nipper a standard car didn’t have an exhaust on show at all. Something sporty may have had a touch of pipe on view, leaving the true sports and supercars to display their twin pipe set ups. This twin silencer would be grouped together or even just be a silencer with twin exits (a bit like the Peco box for a Mini or GT6)
I remember stealing the keys off my Dad to his Jag XJ6, starting it & staring in awe at the twin pipes burbling away, on separate sides no least, poking out the rear. Talking of Jags the V12 E-Type had a particularly showy central fantail setup. Both these cars where sporting, expensive and aspirational. The quad pipe setup was almost unheard of on anything but a Ferrari or Lamborghini.
Oh how times have changed
Without venturing into the modified quagmire of mammoth exhausts fitted to all manner of Fast & Furious looky-likey cars as each to their own and stuff. I’m more annoyed at manufactures chucking on twin or quad-pipe system on cars that wholeheartedly don’t deserve it or do deserve it but have just been executed in a terrible way!
The Mk4 Golf R32 has quite a nice little set of separate pipes, sporty but subtle. While the Mk5 R32 has a sort of twin pipe central outlet but just a bit too far apart look like it wasn’t mis-measured
Porsche on the whole have a reasonably good look to their exhaust except on the fopar 996 Turbo! Just what were they thinking when they designed that twin system but with a quad outlet of two not quite circles. AAAaaaahhhh!
Quad crimes of Lexus
These are just a few to get you going, please feel free to add to the list of SHAME! Or of course the list of superb svelte sexy pipes of love!
Lamborghini Aventador
Paganini Haywire (you know the one)
AC cobra side pipe
AMG G63
(My own current fave is the set-up on the Bentley Continental GT Speed, below - Matt)
