This wild Porsche 928 makes modern cars quieter

Hyundai Motor AverageMuch quieter than cars from previous decades. That’s thanks to a specially modified Porsche 928.

According to the car manufacturer, this 928 has been used as a noise test vehicle for more than 30 years.

It has now been retired and is on display at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, where visitors can admire its unusual array of appendages.

The car was originally designed to help Porsche comply with noise regulations. To do this, engineers needed to measure the noise from different parts of the car. Although Porsche was producing other models at the time, the 928 was identified as the perfect platform.

The tests “required a lot of power in the lower engine speed range,” Harald Mann, one of the testers, said in a statement, adding that those requirements ruled out the 924, Porsche’s entry-level sports car at the time. Noise also had to be tightly controlled, with the 944 and 911 ruled out because of transmission rattles at low loads and louder-than-normal engines.

The 928 entered service in 1989 specifically to determine the level of noise from the tyres. This meant that other noises, such as from the engine and drivetrain, had to be kept to a minimum, which gave the 928 a somewhat bizarre appearance.

Engineers moved the radiator to the front bumper and added a large barrel muffler at the front of the car for the air intake. The hood bulge houses fans that pull hot air out of the engine bay. They only open when needed to minimize noise. An oversized muffler is mounted on the rear window to reduce exhaust noise. The driveshaft and transmission were also insulated, and large rear fender flares were added to accommodate different-sized tires.

Porsche says it retained the factory five-speed manual transmission because it is inherently quite quiet. During testing, the 928 was passed by a set of microphones, and the noise level was varied when the car was in second and third gear.

The test car also featured a 5.4-liter V8 prototype that was part of the 928 GTS development program. This would have been the final version of the 928, a car that was discontinued in 1995, nearly twenty years after its debut at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show. It would have been Porsche’s last V8 road car until the Cayenne was introduced in 2003.

High-resolution gallery: Porsche 928 noise test car

This article was originally published by ClassicCars.com’s editorial partner Motor Authority