Well tuned Mini hums along nicely

The Mini Carmonica has 350 harmonicas fixed to it. Photo / Jacqui Madelin

Marketing language can be flowery, but for once they're right; this car really does sound like a choir of angels. Or at least the atonal church organ reverb that heralds a cinematic spiritual moment - and sets the air alive with sound.

But there are no angels here, only Mini's Carmonica humming down Ponsonby Rd and howling along the motorway, at which point we closed the windows - the harmonic chorus is a lot less pleasant at 100km/h than at 50.

This literally is a musical car - a Mini with 350 harmonicas fixed to it.

Made to shoot a commercial and an online ad due to launch in two weeks, the musical Mini has appeared at the Big Day Out and Laneways music festivals, plus Kumeu hot-rod show.

Chris Schofield - creative director at BMW and Mini's ad agency DraftFCB, which created Carmonica - says the harmonicas were placed both for look and sound. "It would have been great to cover the whole car in a Mad Max-like armour, but we needed to space them out for airflow."

Carmonica's a buzz to drive. The harmonicas start humming from around 20km/h, though they're only really audible from 30km/h and assertive enough to turn heads at 50, when a higher tone undercuts the deeper notes. The sound changes again as speed lifts through 80, when it starts to get unpleasant, 70km/h in a blustery side wind creating the best effect.

Carmonica's a bit of short-lived fun, unless the internet clip goes viral. But it's not a massed harmonica world record - that was set at 6131 instruments in Hong Kong in 2009.