Firstly, be a celebrity. Preferably a world-famous musician. Start an acid funk band, sell millions of records, make millions and millions of pounds – and then make it known that you’re something of a car bloke.

Buy a Ferrari Enzo, and write a story in a well-known car magazine – the wrong car magazine, as it happens – about going to pick it up.

A few years later, put yourself in a position to buy one of the first £1.2m LaFerrari hypercars in the UK. Get your deposit in early. Make it for the third car in the UK – but only if you must. God knows who Ferrari supplied cars number one and two to.

Then, four days after you take delivery, drive your gleaming, 950bhp nonpareil to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Don’t park it with everyone else; not even in the ‘supercar’ parking. Wait until mid-morning, then sweep past crowds of thousands straight into the Supercar Paddock – right next to the official Ferraris waiting to be driven up the hill – with Ferrari’s permission, of course.

Finally, don’t be surprised if a few of the people you’ve just driven past have gathered to watch you lift that dihedral door and get out. Because the most incredible road car ever made by the most incredible car company on the planet is likely to cause quite a stir at an occasion like this.

That’s exactly how Jay Kay of Jamiroquai arrived at this year’s FOS, and I happened to be in the Supercar Paddock when he did – in his Kermit-green LaFerrari. ‘Happened’ is something of a white lie, come to think of it: the Ferrari PR man had tipped me off that Jay was imminent. 

All the same, it was a moment that encapsulated the wonderful informal magic of this weekend – something that will always make FOS more special than every global unveiling, news announcement and photo opportunity the organisers can cram in.

Just as swiftly as he arrived, he was off. World-famous pop star and car collector just rocks up amid the thronging masses; cares not a jot that his priceless new toy might be kicked, dinged, scratched, defiled or drooled on; gets out, takes a bow, and walks off into the crowd to drink in the same Sunoco- and Veuve-fuelled atmos that brings everyone else back year-on-year. Nobody followed him; we were all too busy staring at his motor.

Only at a place like this. Only here can you stand next to five-time Le Mans winner Frank Biela while he’s tucking into a trailer burger, and staring at paddock full of pre-war Grand Prix cars. What happens next is up to you.