No, seriously. If anyone out there has a clue, please write in and explain to me how anyone can consider them ‘cool’. Now, I like a supercar as much as the next person.  Wait, scratch that. How can I say I like it? I’ve never driven a supercar. I’ve never touched one. I’ve never even seen one in real life close up. (I will obviously have to make an effort at the next motorshow.) So how can I categorically state: yup, that one there, that’s the one for me, the one with the bright orange paintjob and the rotating guns mounted on the spoiler?

I realise I’ve just finished telling you that I am really quite partial to the Zonda R, but that’s more of an abstract sort of love. I love it like I love Dali – I’ve no idea what’s going on with it, and would feel vaguely disturbed if I did. But to stand up and say, yup, I’d love to own one? No.

And then it melted.

And yet, despite that, I’m having to wage battles over whether or not the Exige – or the Agera, or the One-77 – is cool, uncool or just too uncool for words. My logic, for anyone who is interested, is this: if it looks like it’s something a City banker would drive without a hint of irony, there are no words for how uncool it is. Give it up now.

Actually, I don’t see why I should be having this argument at all, because it’s my fridge, and my fridge magnets, and if I decide to have the Exige in the Uncool section, on my own head be it. And still, out it came – “but look at it! It looks like the Batmobile!”

There is, I suspect, a significant difference between engine enthusiasts and car enthusiasts. Both care about what the car has under the bonnet, but the car enthusiasts also care about whether or not it looks like a Batmobile. Whereas I actively gravitate towards non-Batmobile cars (they don’t go with my handbag).

Anyway, the point is, I’ve now had a few driving lessons, and have therefore been thinking about what car I would hypothetically buy once I pass my driving test (and before I move to my castle, complete with moat). Meanwhile, my instructor was telling me to stop giving way to people (why? They were busy and going somewhere, whereas I was driving in circles!) and hold my ground. I had to stop being so cooperative, otherwise I would be ‘forever taken advantage of’.

While I was thinking about being less cooperative, I was cut up by a bloke driving a royal blue Ferrari. I can’t swear as to the model, due to the extreme speed at which he almost ran me off the road, but its sloping front looked rather like a Ferrari Daytona. Suffice to say I was rather surprised to see one in Clapham, and even more surprised to nearly have it embed itself in the side of the Fiat 500 I was desperately trying not to stall.

Ah, I thought. That is what I’m supposed to do. That raw, unbridled aggre-

“Was that the same Ferrari I saw on the roundabout a few minutes ago?” my instructor asked. I wouldn’t know, since at the time I was trying to remember which turn I was meant to be taking. But if so –

“Why is that bloke driving around pointlessly?”

As several Very Busy Persons behind me decided to improve my driving skills by honking their horns and pointing out that I should have allowed the Daytona-alike and my little Fiat to merge rather than braking and therefore delaying them by 3.4 seconds, I pondered the problem of the supercar. Even a Ferrari seemed a little pointless in South London. Surely anyone who drove one would either have to buy their own corner of Monte Carlo, or would otherwise have to face running for a pint of milk in something that looks like it should ram other cars for daring to share road space.

There’s a reason I’m going to have to learn to rebuild an engine. (Image via alfaromeowallpaper.info)

I’m going to have to decline. I’d much rather drive something that didn’t automatically make people hate me from miles away.

I’ve settled on an Alfa 166. No, it’s not a supercar.

It’s better.