The sweet sound of an engine

[Martin Harford]

The reason that people like the sound of a V8 is because they associate it with speed and fun driving. There’s nothing inherently pleasant about that noise. If your refrigerator made that noise you’d be on the phone with the appliance repair company.

If people are young, they’ll quickly associate speed and fun driving with the hum of an electric motor. If they’re old or have a neophobia personality they probably never will. I’m sure when cars first came out some people always missed the smell of horse poop and the sound of clomping hooves and others quickly learned to love cars.

Actually, they hired young kids to shovel the horse poop into dung hills. Then the kids and their friends played "King of the Mountain" on top of it. They had no place to play once ICEs came along, hence their second choice of playgrounds. Facts can be ugly things!