Car Culture Bibliography
Competitive Edge Program Research Topics

A critical evaluation of what the various elements of car sound culture are. Car sound culture is the appreciation, knowledge, and obsession with the ways that cars engines, horns, and acoustic landscape sound. It is also the identification as a car enthusiast and the various way this culture builds self identity. Largely this culture manifests itself with the ways that people build and collect cars, appreciate engines and their sounds, and how these people find community in these activities.

Why are loud engines so well liked amongst car enthusiasts?
what aesthetic values are taken into consideration in the sound of car engines?
what degree of knowledge do people have in this culture about engines?
How accurately can they tell information about the engines simply from hearing them?
what do the various elements of engine sound communicate/connotate in the culture? In which ways are these engine sounds associated with status?
What is the history of this culture? Has it changed over time and where is it heading?
Is this culture different across the United States?
is this element of car culture present in other parts of the world?
Which of these vehicle sounds is within the scope of this work?
Cars, Trains, Buses, Fire Engines, Police Cars, Airplanes?, Boats?
In which ways do these sounds represent a kind of nostalgia?

Why is this a male dominated space
Are there any ethnic/racial groups/divides that participate in this culture?
Car engine sounds are associated with the fossil fuel industry, therefor create a sound based politic
In which ways does the proliferation of electric vehicles effect this culture? Do they mimic it?
Is there an alternative culture that will develop from technology?

Car sounds represent modernity
how ubiquitous these sounds are with the urban landscape
In which ways these sound spaces are embraced or rejected in media
media that celebrates these sound spaces
media that rejects them
in which ways these sounds are abstracted in media

Literal Vs Symbolic- The sounds are cars in the literal sense vs symbolic/metaphorical representations of them (especially in media)
Nostalgia Studies- The ways in which nostalgia plays a role in understanding why car sounds are appealing to people
Human Constructed Sonic Space- Engines have had an immense effect on the sonic spaces we live in, their sounds dominate our lives and have had an ever shifting effect for the last 100 years
Car sounds represent the sound of modernity, they coincide with the rapid change in lifestyles that has been carried on until today
These sounds represent a human generated ontology of sound, all of them are not at all naturalistic and represent an 'abstracted' opposite of that
American Studies perspective, the ways in which Americans uniquely fine identity in these sounds

Additional Questions-
Which of these vehicle sounds is within the scope of this work?
Cars, Trains, Buses, Fire Engines, Police Cars, Airplanes?, Boats?
In which ways do these sounds represent a kind of nostalgia?

What Role Do Engine Sounds Play in Car Culture?

• What are the various elements of car sound culture?
• This is the appreciation, knowledge, and obsession with the ways that cars 'engines' sound.
• Largely this manifests itself with the ways that people create loud engines and the ways they show the off to one another.
• Why are loud engines so well liked amongst car enthusiasts?
• what aesthetic values are taken into consideration?
• what degree of knowledge do people have in this culture about engines?
• How accurately can they tell information about the engines simply from hearing them?
• what do the various elements of engine sound communicate/connotate in the culture?
• In which ways are these engine sounds associated with status?
• What is the history of this culture? Has it changed over time and where is it heading?
• Is this culture different across the United States?
• Is this element of car culture present in other parts of the world?

car culture bibliography

This approach if successful should also be done to look into the sounds of cop cars (another similar and interesting type of car sound). I went today (July 28th 2024) to the San Dimas car show and noted the interest people took with the various sounds cars make and the near obsession and admiration certain cars received as they drove by because the the specific achievement their engine noises made. I am curious to better understand and document these unusual cultural elements. As a sonic culture this seems really interesting and likely is under documented. Is