> I would rather watch a 3-4 second top fuel race rather than a 2-3 second electric car race.

The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises has always seemed pretty silly to me. Maybe I just don’t get it. Like heat, loud noises are just a sign of inefficiency and energy loss. A car that goes the same speed as another car, but 10dB quieter is objectively better and more efficient at delivering power to the wheels. A car that is both faster and quieter is even better and more impressive. Like a GPU that delivers high performance without getting hot and needing a fan. A noisy car is a worse car.

From an enthusiast point of view, I'd wager that it's more because a lot of the most iconic engine noises are distinctive and recognizable based on model and just general throttle feedback and it's a quirk that gives different cars a lot of personality. Versus electric cars not having that personality quirk to really tell them apart- they're all going to be quite similar in "feel" and responsiveness to the throttle. I think in general for more hands on enthusiasts electric will never really quite take over ICE obsession. From a tinkering standpoint, intricate mechanical systems like engines are far more satisfying to pour your hands over when you're rebuilding or modifying an engine than black box electrical systems that you can't really reasonably work on. The act of replacing a physical, actual part instead of plugging in a laptop to twiddle some abstract values is also more gratifying. It's the same reason I imagine that mechanical watches are pretty much universally preferred by watch collectors and enthusiasts over digital ones.

edit: When I think about it more I guess celebrating inefficiencies/nostalgia/the physical aspect of a hobby is not that different anywhere. Like people still collecting vinyl records, or using real CRTs with refurbished consoles instead of emulating, people into collecting physical books / doing their own book bindings instead of switching to digital etc.

> The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises

BTW this is a gross generalization. Many of us car enthusiasts, including oldsters like me, love EVs. And if I'm feeling a bit spicy, the fact that I can use 100% of the power without announcing that to the world is exhilarating. I love a big rumbly V8, too, but everything has it's place.