Why do Beetles sound like they do?

[mr2fc]

I've read the "chirrup" is due to exhaust tips, but what about the clatter? I don't think Scoobys do this, do they? (Maybe difficult to tell over the big exhausts!)

Cheers in advance

[Soopahfly]

Couldn't tell you why beetles sound the way they do, but I can tell you why Scooby's have a distinct sound. Unequal length headers.
If you replaced them with equal length ones then they sound normal.

[93fxdl]

Part of the ringing with Beetles, is being air cooled there's no water jacket to muffle mechanical noise, also the fins on the barrels and heads will resonate to produce noise,
The small bore tailpipes also have an effect on tone and volume, the Beetles sound much different when fitted with a zoom tube or taper tip tailpipes
Ttfn Glenn

[chris y]

Yes, all the clatteriness is because its air cooled, although a healthy one isn't at all loud, they sound lovely at a nice tickover if they haven't been messed around with.
The whistle noise, also known as fweem is all down to the tailpipes.
If you fit bigger tailpipes to an otherwise standard car you loose the noise, and many years ago we fitted beetle tailpipes to a few motorbike exhausts that were just straight through pipe and they had the fweem.
(Very loud on some bikes at speed though, I did end up in trouble with the police)

[datman]

i heard the other day that beetles had a problem with one cylinder getting too hot, so vw brought out a revised distributor cam that had retarded timing on the lobe for that cylinder. Bodge !

[accord83]

My twin port barped down hill on the over run, like a Morris Minor, but that was due to a cracked head.

[luckyseven]

It's not clatter, it's fweem www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fweem

[mr2fc]

Cheers for all your replies. 93fxdl, chris y and datman, your replies jogged some memories.