Watch a Toyota Supra’s Exhaust Shatter a Glass in Slow Motion

It’s not quite like the vocal technique, but it certainly is loud.

byLewin Day|
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It's a classic trope, perhaps most popularized by cartoons - the opera singer hitting a high note in the big finale, and shattering wine glasses and monocles throughout the theatre. Of course, opera is no longer quite as popular as it once was, but the Mark IV Toyota Supra is a legend that will live forever.  Thus, if you really want to see wine glasses destroyed, it's surely by the power of a mighty turbocharged straight-six. Fear not, for YouTuber Warped Perception has you covered.

The basic concept is simple—place a wine glass by the Supra's exhaust. From there, dial up the revs with two-step enabled, with the ECU set to cut ignition above 3800 rpm while the car is stationary. This allows raw fuel to build up, causing the pops and bangs the kids all love when it finally combusts in the hot exhaust. 

It's a simple test setup; you probably don't want to stand there, though., YouTube/Warped Perception

It's no trouble at all for the Supra to blow the glasses to pieces, though the mechanism is different from the traditional idea of a singer shattering a glass. In the vocal technique, the idea is to sing incredibly loudly at the resonant frequency of the glass. This causes the glass to vibrate at increasingly large amplitudes until the strength of the material can bear no more deformation, at which point the glass shatters. Often treated as a myth, the technique was proved viable by Mythbusters in 2005, working with vocalist Jaime Vendara who went on to master the ability. 

If you try this, it's good manners to sweep up afterwards. , YouTube/Warped Perception

In the Supra's case, some resonance is visible in the wine glass as it sits in the exhaust stream from the vehicle. However, when the glass shatters, it's due to the high-pressure wave that blasts out of the exhaust created by the detonating fuel. It's highly likely that running a two-step set up that cuts fuel instead of ignition wouldn't work for this purpose, as there would be no sudden explosion to smash the glass to pieces.

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Of course, there is potential to get a car's exhaust to resonate at the precise note and volume required to shatter a glass without using two-step pops and bangs to do it, though we're yet to see it done. If you're new to the whole idea of two-step and related technologies, though, brush up on our primer that explains anti-lag and how it all works. Just know that it's very, very loud and can draw you a lot of unwanted attention.

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