Mercedes-AMG has emerged as a true BMW M rival, and it’s hardly surprising given that it’s been able to utilize the expertise of its championship-winning Formula One driver and engineers. But AMG knows that in the end, its recent success doesn’t even matter.
That’s why, to ensure it carries momentum into the next automotive era, AMG has enlisted the help of Linkin Park.
(Yes, really.)
AMG CEO Tobias Moers recently told Australian publication Wheels at the Los Angeles International Auto Show that the performance brand already has begun developing the sound of its future electric vehicles. The German automaker is working with multiple experts to do so, many of whom are from outside the automotive industry.
“You know Linkin Park?” Moers asked. “I started to talk with these guys about what is their interpretation of electrified sound.”
Given that the rumble of AMG’s twin-turbo V-8s essentially has become the brand’s calling card, it wants its future EVs similarly to evoke emotion.
“We started off years ago,” Moers said. “We established a team doing artificial sound and we worked together with games specialists, we worked together with film artists doing sound for films.”
Moers gave little indication as to what type of artificial sound the EVs will produce, but the fact that AMG is working with game designers suggest it could be a synthesized internal combustion engine.
Many automakers, AMG included, already use artificial methods to enhance the noise their performance cars make, as modern engines are very quiet. That said, using audio recordings to recreate audible engine revs in an EV — as Vince Vaughn and Kevin James did in “The Dilemma” — might be a bit too fake for customers to accept.
Besides, as we’ve learned from watching Formula E, electric cars do in fact make their own distinct noises. The might not sound as ungodly as an eight-banger, but their futuristic hums are straight out of “The Jetsons,” which is just as cool.
