'When I worked out how to turn the car on, its backside roared like a lion in the Masai Mara': A snob's guide to sports cars

Some years ago, when my step-sister and I were still living at home in London, Dad came down to breakfast and declared that there was a ‘hairdresser’s car’ parked outside. It was a bright green Lotus, which — on further enquiry — turned out to belong to my step-sister’s new boyfriend. He later became her husband and the Lotus was sold.

Sports cars, to a certain sort of Briton, have always seemed a touch ostentatious and naff. Although it slightly depends on what sports car we’re talking about. Vintage Aston Martin or Jag? You can happily sling the Purdeys in the boot and arrive for a straightforward shooting weekend in one of those. But a newer, neon-green Lotus? Hmmm. More dubious.

These days, one’s choice of car, like so many personal choices, is political. Have you gone full electric or are you still cruising around the sticks with a diesel engine? Sales of convertibles in the UK have halved in the past 25 years, and brash, flashy sports cars have become vaguely infra dig. You can get electric sports cars — the Porsche Taycan, for example — but opting for electric over combustion is a bit like putting racing stripes on a mobility scooter. Because the growl and devil-may-care attitude of a sports car is all part of the fun. Who cares about the rainforests! Have you heard how loud my engine is?

I once had a McLaren delivered to my flat, via a lorry, so I could take it for a test weekend to the New Forest and back, but the realisation that I was driving something extraordinary, something a little bit different, came before I even left London. When I worked out how to turn the car on, its backside roared like a lion in the Masai Mara — and my neighbour’s small child, watching expectantly on the pavement, burst into tears in shock.

It was terrific fun, obviously. Cruise around in a £200,000 McLaren for a weekend and you get gawped at through the windscreen by curious onlookers, especially if you’re a woman. ‘She must be married to a footballer,’ I imagined them thinking. But there wasn’t much space for my bag, and you need the thighs of an Olympic skier to clamber in and out of the thing. So, fun for a spell, and then quite a relief to hand back again.

Now, conspicuous wealth is out and quiet luxury is in, so only the very vulgar tend to purr the streets of Knightsbridge in supercars. Have one, if you must, but consider having another car — an old Defender or a Volkswagen — to pick up a potential date. My brother-in-law, former owner of the Lotus, drives an electric Kia, and I often see a man climb into a Volvo and think: ‘Smart choice.’ I sort of have to defend the less glamorous, more practical choice, these days, because my other half drives a Nissan Juke. But then it’s never really about the car, is it? It’s about how a man, erm, uses it.

What do women want on wheels? James Fisher gets to drive fast cars for a living, but are sleek lines and high horsepower quite the 'babe magnets' so many men think they are?

On a quest to find the truth, he dared do the unthinkable.... which was to just ask them. Click here to find out what he learned.