What came first: the noisy, brightly coloured supercar – or the reckless, narcissistic show-off you so often see at the wheel of one?

A road tester may be in a uniquely fair position to address that. I’m lucky enough to drive plenty of fast, loud, exotic cars in my regular line of work, but not because I’ve spent a perspective-eroding sum to own any of them.

I have no interest to declare. I frequently have been, am and will continue to be both tutting bystander and tutted-at offender.

More often, probably, the former. How often have you been at a car show, event or club meet and seen a supercar that you’re inexorably drawn towards a short time before it is driven in a way that makes you roll your eyes?

Well, let’s consider the case for the defence. The next time you tut, ponder for a moment if your own expectations may be a factor. Modern supercars are, I assure you, dramatic, attention-grabbing cars.

Wherever you drive one, take one, park one, or just stand next to one in a manner suggestive of ownership, you are fair game. You are an attraction. You have invited the gaze of the public.

Eleven-year-olds at bus stops wave their arms and shout: “Rev it!” People ask to take photos, to see inside. They want to know what it’s like. Of course they do.

I usually retreat to a discreet distance and admit at the earliest opportunity that “it’s borrowed”, because I don’t like the glare that these cars create – much less the idea that someone might assume I’d intended to bathe in it.

Whatever you do, though, you can’t really escape it; and clearly, for some, the water’s lovely and they’re very happy to get carried away by it.

Also, when driving a supercar, you might be surprised just how hard you need to work in order not to conform to the stereotype. That sounds like the ultimate cop-out.

But when there’s 800 horsepower under your toe, a very ordinary prod of the accelerator can easily cue up an angry downshift, a loud flare of revs, and rather more forward thrust than you intended.

But while the dynamic mission of a supercar can be a contributing factor in all of this, the very image of one can in fact corrupt perceptions all by itself. I once took a Ferrari SF90 Spider to a certain popular ‘cars and coffee’ venue in the English Midlands.

The one where a mantra is displayed opposite the car park exit to remind visitors to leave considerately – in amusingly anatomical terms.

Well, I can assure you, I did. And yet, because I was driving a yellow Ferrari, whoever was running the social media feed for the aforementioned venue on the day in question used a photo of the car next to the ‘Don’t Be A Dick’ sign, to imply that its owner hadn’t been so responsible.

Comments were soon made to confirm how quickly I’d driven away and how others should be more careful.

As it happened, my young daughter, who had ridden in another car on our outbound journey, was with me in the Ferrari on that return leg. She had been a bit nervous of the car, so I’d spent a while reassuring her that all would be well, that cars are just cars and needn’t be scary.

I vividly remember tiptoeing out of the gate and down the road as gingerly as I could. I think the SF90 was in electric mode, so no yobby V8 noise at all. But it didn’t matter a jot. People simply saw – or, rather, remembered – exactly what suited them.

How many of those same people might have thronged and cheered at the start line of the Goodwood hill a few months ago, I wonder.

And how many would be willing to consider the idea that, if they didn’t lavish so much attention on supercars wherever they’re found, the drivers of those supercars might not so often ‘revert to type’?