Chris Billett
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2015–2024
1:37 · 8.5M views · Jul 15, 2006
A short clip of a Renault F1 engine playing God Save the Queen by precisely controlling its RPM, recorded at Goodwood. It demonstrates how finely the drivetrain can be controlled.
Treated as a favorite hack and a go-to example in threads about machines playing music.
6 comments from Hacker News
I once walked the footbridge over the hillclimb at Goodwood during the Festival of Speed as a V10 F1 car went underneath. Was something else entirely. Seeing the musical demos the Renault team used to do was always interesting too - if you haven't heard an F1 car play God Save The Queen [0] it's a great watch (and a reminder about how controllable they are). [0] this video
My favorite version of this hack is Renault changing the RPM of their F1 engine to play God Save The Queen: this video
The examples were a lot of fun to play with. Nice work. I was thinking earlier today of creating an F1 engine note simulator. I would want to play with the number of cylinders, v angle, crank offset (v8 normal crank/180 crank) and maybe some kind of exhaust system variables (tuned length, crossover pipe), and of course RPM. I don't know where to start, could you point me at the type of programming I would want to look at to figure out how to do this? Here is an f1 car engine playing God Save the Queen [1], sounds atrocious, but still cool. [1] this video
> Next trick...turn a Tesla into a musical instrument via the motor drives. Renault did it some years ago to demonstrate how much control they have on their F1 engine drivetrain: this video
Yeah I am guessing it is from the motor RPM pitch but I would like to find out. The Renault F1 engine could famously play tunes this way. this video