Stokdgs
dansautodetailing.com
I`m in my mid 40`s, so I`m a child of the 70`s/80`s. When I was in highschool, guys were tuning 60`s and early 70`s American iron because that was all they could afford. A guy I played soccer with on the school team had a beautiful Pontiac Catalina which sounded exactly as you describe. It was perfect.
When I was stationed in the UK, I was fortunate to work a couple times as a flagger/corner worker at a local road course for a few low-level club races. I clearly remember working on turn 2 for an event attended by all sorts of vintage cars. There were several AC Cobra`s and Mustang`s on the grid that day. Turn 1 was not visible due to a hill but you could hear the American V8`s roar as they came out of that turn and headed our direction long before you could see them. We were again serenaded as they tore through our corner and shot off into the distance. Even the Brit I was working with would pause and get this huge smile each time they passed. None of Jags, Astons, Mercs or other vintage European cars that day could come close. Sadly, there were no Ferrari`s in attendance.
DesertNate ---
Yes !!! Pretty much all Pontiacs of that era came with very nicely made tuned exhaust pipes that sounded better "stock" than all other similarly sized engines from other marques..
Even as a little kid at my Dad`s Humble Oil/Enco,Exxon gas station, I could hear the differences of sound from Pontiacs compared to all other marques..
And as they came into their being with the first GTO, the GTO powered Tempest, the Catalina, the Bonneville, and then the Trans Ams, wow, those cars really sounded great and ran great..
I remember them all because I saw them all, worked on most of them, and put gas into all of them..

The first Non Pontiac cars that started sounding better "stock" were the bigger engine Corvettes, the Chevelle Malibu, the Novas the Impalas, all loaded with Big Block 396 - 427 bigger cam solid lifter nasty engines...
The best sounding small block I ever had the pleasure of being close to was the 1967-68-69 Camaro Z28`s; these came with special chambered exhaust pipes that sounded really nice with that little 302cid solid lifter, twin holley carbs factory header combo.. 290hp - yeah, just keep thinking that - please - mr insurance company...

I agree with you completely - that Pontiac you heard, and for me ALL Pontiacs with V8`s sounded great right out of the box, no mods even...
What a treat to do what you did in the UK !!!! I would have loved to do that but all the dang USAF airplanes I was in flew over Europe to places that were NOTHING like that heaven you were in..

Closest I ever got to hearing more european sounding ultimate racing cars was at the Next-to-Last Formula-1 race at Indy -- Unbelievable !!!!
These were coming close to the last of the V8 (from V10) ultimate racing engines that put out close to 900 hp or more at 19,000rpm and the sound was definitely going to hurt your ears without good earplugs... Oh wow !! I will never forget that Friday, Sat, and Sunday!!!
The Red Bull F1 Team stayed in the same hotel - there was never a quiet moment - and they were all the nicest bunch of Aussies !!!
Dan F