I am reluctant to get into this thread as i am going to appear to be an old fart,,,, but here goes,, My first ride was in one of the original Barchettas , the car belonged to a friend of mine and i had seen it many times. i think it was a moderately warm evening, and just before we were to drive off, my friend inserted a straight pipe into each muffler. We drove a ways to get to an open road (not an easy task in Queens, NY,) when we got to a wide enough road, he let it out. Of course , its a roadster, so the wind and the sounds of the V12, and the exhaust were amazing..
Just as an aside, i think he paid $7K for the car, i also remember he took the heads off to do a valve job and a valve cost $ 12 at that time.. ( the '50's )
That was my first ride, i also had a second ride, which i also remember somewhat,, it also was a roadster, maybe a 3 liter sports / racer . This time i was the "driver" and i handled the steering as the car was towed into Manhattan from Queens on a 20' length of tow rope... That was interesting also. No sound from the V12 this time.