h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just heard, in the distance, one of those car horns that play La Cucaracha that were so popular in the 70s And with that same odd tempo the old ones had http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd9SP2SH04k

Blimey, it must be a more nostalgic sound than I thought. I've got a sudden urge to wear split-knee loons, a granddad vest and listen to old Tyrannosaurus Rex LPs

I've toyed with the idea of getting a horn like that... or one that goes AAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOGAAAAAAAAHHHHH! The horn my car came with is totally pointless. It is the gayest horn a car could ever have (and I've confirmed that with an actual gay person, several even). If I am driving down the road and someone decides to merge into my lane while I'm still in it, if I lay on my horn they will not hear it (I have confirmed this, also). I need something that gets ATTENTION.

If nothing else, owning this car has ensured that I will *always* honk the horn on any prospective future cars before signing the sales slip. Could be a deal-breaker.

There's an aftermarket air horn available. It's made by a company named Stebel. It also goes under various other names (like Bad Boy). It looks something like this: http://prostreetblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/stebel-horn.jpg

DON'T buy one! They're junk. $50 bucks wasted.

I've gone through two of them on my motorcycle. Apparently I got lucky as they often break sooner than mine did. Sometimes right out of the box (for a magazine product test and comparison, no less.)


I've since switched to Hella Supertones. I have no problem being heard now.

I had a friend who fitted a speaker to the inside of his radiator grill and hooked that up the microphone of his CB radio. That was a fun car to ride in Thing is, this was the 80s. Nowadays it couldn't be too difficult to do something similar and have a little box of sampled soundfiles that you can rotate through, depending on you mood for the day in question. It might Cucaracha, it might be a plain old airhorn, it might be a train whistle, or it might be something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MdsU130FOY

You could get seriously creative with something like that If I had a car I'd use this, which I have a very good soundfile of cos I was listening to it when Carol first called the show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuzPhbtTwcE#t=2m55s In fact it's the alarm sound on my PC timer