Do I make you horny? Ford says, "not so much" if you live in the U.S.

Jeff Glucker — Sat, 21 May 2011 14:06:00 EST

Ford touts it own horn - Click above to watch video after the jump

You'd think designing a car horn would be easy. Press the wheel, make it beep, and call it a day. It's more complicated than that, as Ford's Patricia Seashore can explain.

Ford adapts its horns to suit the needs of drivers around the world. Different cultures use the horn in different ways . As a result, vehicle horns must be tuned for the amount of use they'll receive, as well as the tone they produce.

In North America, the horn is used less for warning others ("Hey, watch it, pal!") than it is for friendlier communication ("Hey, I'm outside to pick you up!"). Ford tunes our horns to emit richer, more pleasing tones than past horns, but they're still designed to get your attention. South American drivers, on the other hand, get a horn tuned for short, rapid bursts of sound. In India, Ford installs disc horns that have a longer life than our trumpet horns, which is necessitated by Indian drivers' heavy horn usage.

Beyond cultural differences, Seashore's team also studies different environments and how they'll affect horn performance. Chinese drivers are serious horn users, so horn longevity is important. Chinese cars also need horns that can handle extreme heat and cold, plus a wide range of altitudes. Seashore says, "Altitude and temperatures affect the way sound waves travel - that's just physics."

Like we said, a lot of thought goes into your car's horn. Click past the jump for a short car horn quiz and some b-roll of horn engineers at work.

Continue reading Do I make you horny? Ford says, "not so much" if you live in the U.S.

Do I make you horny? Ford says, "not so much" if you live in the U.S. originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 21 May 2011 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Customize your honkin' horn with Horntones

Jeremy Korzeniewski — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:03:00 EST

Filed under: Aftermarket, Audio, Gadgets, CES

Adding a really loud, powerful horn to a very small car has been causing fits of laughter for a while now... but if that is too passe' for you, why not consider the Hornstones FX-550? First seen at CES, this device allows you to play almost any audio file that can be transferred via USB as your honk. The FX-550 can store eight songs or audio files at a time. We can think of a few good songs for specific cars, like "Little GTO" in your classic Pontiac, "409", "Little Deuce Coupe"... the list goes on and on. Or, how about "Rollin" (language) by Limp Bizkit, or Tupac's "Picture Me Rollin" (language)? It boggles the mind. And then there are the "road rage" set who will just record their own voice screaming obscenities -- maybe this isn't such a good idea.

[Source: Uber Review]

Customize your honkin' horn with Horntones originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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