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The roar of a performance car is the ultimate soundtrack for petrolheads – and capturing it is becoming serious business THE SOUND OF
Starting young Huffman’s entrepreneurial streak appeared very early. His family had a summer house in Rhode Island, across the road from a beach where parking was scarce. At just 14, the young automotive fan spotted an opportunity. He would stand outside with a sign offering beachgoers somewhere to leave their cars for $20 or $30. For around $100, he’d also valet the car while its owner was enjoying the beach. “I was shuffling cars in and out with my vacuum and my mother’s cleaner, trying to make some money,” he recalls. “That’s where the entrepreneurial vision began.” Cars were already an obsession. He devoured magazines and fantasised about what he might own once he was finally old enough to drive. Huffman saved money until he could afford his first BMW, even before he was old enough to drive. But it soon caused an argument with his mother that inadvertently provided the seed for a business. Huffman modified the BMW to make it louder. His mother hated it and issued an ultimatum – he had to sell the car or quieten it down. Then she asked, why couldn’t it be quiet when necessary but loud when her son wanted it to be. “I thought, that’s a good idea,” he says. He engineered a valved exhaust incorporating a flap, and built a control module for it – and it worked. He soon realised others might want the same, but the crucial next step wasn’t a conventional
or American automotive entrepreneur Austin Huffman, capturing the visceral sound of a high-performance car isn’t
advertisement. He put it on YouTube, and like-minded car nuts started asking if they could buy one. While studying at Lehigh University, Huffman received help with the mechanics of establishing the company, while a supplier in Pennsylvania manufactured the early units. First he built ten, and all sold quickly. Then he built 25 and sold all 25. From there came exhaust systems for BMWs, Porsches, Ferraris and other performance cars, followed by expansion into an operation – Valvetronic Designs – that Huffman says now employs close to 50 people. But alongside engineering and Huffman understands something that many businesses are still discovering, which is that customers don’t necessarily encounter a product when they’re ready to buy it. A teenager watches a YouTube video of a McLaren with a particular exhaust system and saves it. Perhaps he’ll never own a McLaren, but that clip becomes part of an aspiration: ‘One day I’ll have a fast car, and that’s how I want mine to sound.’ “Finding the right exhaust usually comes from someone finding a YouTube video that they absolutely love and resonate with,” says Huffman. That means the video isn’t simply an advert accompanying the product. In many cases, it’s the customer’s first experience of it. manufacturing, something else was becoming integral to the company’s success: cool content. Sell the experience
just about making great content. It has helped turn social media into a powerful engine for business growth. There are many filmmakers who would be horrified at the suggestion that the soundtrack to their lovingly crafted film should consist largely of an engine being revved, accelerated hard through the gears and blipped through a series of downshifts. No carefully chosen music and sound design to give the edit pace and emotion, just the raw sound of a roaring motor. “For the talking segments, we maybe have some very low background music,” says Shane Rush, the filmmaker in charge of Huffman’s media output. “But throughout the actual sound clips of the car, interior and exterior, no music. We want the exhaust to be the music.” When the product you’re selling is a performance exhaust system, that makes perfect sense. Huffman’s rapidly expanding automotive business has made social media and filmmaking fundamental parts of its marketing strategy. Together, they have developed an approach that mixes highly polished product filmmaking with YouTube, Instagram and TikTok content, spontaneous lifestyle material and Huffman’s growing personal following. Of course, camera, editing and social strategy certainly matter. But in this business, sound sells.
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November/December 2026
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