Don’t let electric cars silence the rev head

Gliding by in silence doesn’t have the same appeal as the roar of an internal combustion engine, writes Michael Madigan. Electric cars might benefit the environment but they will muffle our nation’s rev head passion.

How can you go hooning in an electric car?

How do you idle up to a red light, look meaningfully out your right window at a potential competitor with one eyebrow cocked and conjure up a challenging roar with a quick pump of the accelerator when you’re driving a Nissan Leaf?

How do you watch the Hardie Ferodo without the soundtrack of two dozen V8 engines blasting their aggression as they power around Bathurst’s Mt Panorama?

To suggest you can simply sit appreciatively in front of the television as they whiz silently as slot cars is cruel, like being forced to watch a movie with the actors muzzled.

Those were the days … Picture: Grease/Supplied

There’s always been music in the internal combustion engine, from the tinny sound of the two-stroke trail bike to the full-throated bellow of the V8 delivered through a twin-system exhaust — the automotive equivalent of a lion’s bellow.

Yet now, we must face the inevitable “day the music died”, possibly somewhere in the 2050s if Labor’s plan gains traction.

Labor Leader Bill Shorten’s electric vision would have half of all new cars on the road powered by electricity by 2030.

Within that vision lies the magnificent spectre of Australia’s car manufacturing sector rising, Lazarus-like, from the grave.

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Shorten says that, given we have the lithium, why not make the batteries that power the cars right here in Australia?

“Let’s do this with electric vehicles and charging equipment and stations, too,’’ he added, raising hopes a muted version of the GTHO Falcon might come back to life to chase those arrogant, American Ford Mustangs off the road.

It’s a worthy policy from a financial and environmental perspective, albeit one with a few wrinkles to iron out including how we get about in a decentralised state such as Queensland, where not everyone parks their car in the garage after a daily 20km commute.

Even the humble Toyota Celica has more guts than an electric vehicle. Picture: Supplied

But the rise of the electric car does change the atmospherics of the nation in a very literal sense, and with it will come the further erosion of a still-lingering subculture that has been part of Australian life since the end of World War II.

Hooning in the form of street-drag racing is socially irresponsible and juvenile, yet a more carefully choreographed version of the genre was part of Australia life for decades.

Young men once re-engineered their cars in both performance and appearance, then paraded them down the main street of towns and cities (including Brisbane’s Queen St) on a Saturday night.

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Anthropologists would be united in their verdict that it was a form of “peacocking”, as males competed with each other to create the most elaborate and powerful vehicle which was, inevitably, part of his armoury in the battle to secure a mate.

Noise was vital to the performance. Like wolves howling in the breeding season, the car had to deliver commanding vocals to attract attention.

To arrive in an electric car amid such a cacophony would be admitting defeat before the contest had begun, like a peacock stripping itself of feathers before the opening move in the shimmering mating dance.

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Many referred to it as “doing laps’’ and the tradition became entrenched in folklore with Bob Hudson’s 1975 hit The Newcastle Song.

Even the venerable institution, the Queensland Museum, gave a nod of recognition to its cultural significance when it showcased George Kyprios’s car a couple of years ago.

The display honoured the memory of “Rock’n’Roll George’’ who spent much of the 1950s and ’60s piloting his FX Holden up and down Brisbane’s Queen St, inspiring a popular 1960s song and weaving himself into the state’s cultural tapestry.

The much-loved George died in 2009 at 82, and the world has changed immeasurably since his heyday in 1955.

Soon we’ll all be gliding by in silent conformity. Picture: AAP/John Gass

Of course, the above mentioned Hardie-Ferodo is not really the Hardie-Ferodo, and hasn’t been since 1982.

It’s the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and its race cars are powered by engines that 1970s pit mechanics would be utterly baffled by — “Where in God’s name is your carburettor man?’’

The internal combustion engine is probably doomed to become a museum piece like Watt’s steam engine and George’s FX.

Soon we will be gliding by each other on roads of silent conformity, where even the Beach Boys’ Little Deuce Coup, which famously “purrs like a kitten ’til the Lake Pipes roar’’, is greeted with a stern, librarian-like stare and a collective finger to the lips — ssshhh!

@madiganm