2

I've been looking trying to find an onomatopoeia for a car starting. I've tried to come up with it by making the sound myself, but I come up blank and quite frankly failed to mimicking the sound. It's actually pretty difficult to mimic once you've tried. I've also tried to search for an example, but I've hit a dead end. I'm not sure if there is an exact sound, but if anyone has any ideas as how a car initial sounds when you start it up, that would help.

K. Lom
  • 29
  • 1
    Perhaps it depends on which car (my ‘67 Mustang, my ‘99 Cadillac or my Tesla, for example).... – Arm the good guys in America Feb 08 '18 at 05:20
  • I agree this is going to depend on exactly what sounds you're trying to mimic. I've heard coughed to life for older cars, and I think rev might have been partially helped along by onomatopoeia, as it has a lot of the same sounds as the purely echoic vroom (though of course it comes originally from "revolution"). – 1006a Feb 08 '18 at 05:51
  • @1006a I guess for clarification on what type of car i'm trying to mimic, it would be more modern cars. Older cars like user1284969632635's '67 mustang, reminds me of some kind of coughing sound which you mentioned as "coughed to life" at the initial start before the "rev" or vroom. That might be pretty close to what I'm looking for. – K. Lom Feb 08 '18 at 06:32
  • Diesel or petrol or electric or LPG or hybrid ? – Nigel J Feb 08 '18 at 07:01

1 Answers1

1

The sound that a car engine makes in general is vroom.

If you put your foot on the gas when starting the engine, it's definitely 'vroom'. Each increase in revs gets a vroom of it's own (three squeezes of the pedal, "vroom vroom vroom").

If I were asked to mimic a starting car, I'd try something like "v-v-v-vroom!"). So, I think va-va-voom can apply to starting an engine as much as revving it...

va-va-voom/ˌvä vä ˈvo͞om/ 1950s (originally US): representing the sound of a car engine being revved.

Va-va-voom's other meaning, as an exclamation signifying that one is suddenly sexually aroused, might well have started by analogy with an engine coming on.

Certainly, advertisers have played with that double entendre ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLD1plXHmLY

ArchContrarian
  • 2,052