Helping to preserve dignity: the sleeper

Nobody likes a show-off. That is a proven fact and can be seen anywhere you go. For example, the person who suddenly has the desire to tell everyone that they saved £7.87 at their last weekly shop will only be met with a sarcastic "Well done!". If you want a more extreme example, check out this 18 year old's Instagram account. Judging by his photos, he is extremely rich and calls us normal people 'peasants'. Naturally, he receives a ton of hate.

Parking your 458 next to normal cars will never look good

So what if you have a brain and therefore do not want to be the centre of attention, but you quite fancy a rapid car? You are then faced with quite a horrid dilemma. Normally, a fast car ends up being something with the word 'super' in it, be that supercar to a super-saloon. These 'super' autos tend to shout to the world that they're fast: outrageous air intakes, swollen wheel arches, quadruple exhausts et al. Put that car in a traffic jam in your local town - you're going to look like a cock.

Luckily however, there is one specific type of car that would cater to our sensible needs. Ladies and Germs, may I introduce you to the sleeper. A sleeper is just sheer excellence; a car with monumental amounts of speed, but from the outside, you would never guess that it holds such a lick of pace. To quickly put it into perspective for you, imagine an Audi A4 diesel with a Corvette engine inside it. Instant sleeper.

No, this is not a sleeper. Proudly displaying it has a V6

Factory-made sleepers are quite rare. This is a very understandable thing, because when a manufacturer makes a fast version of one of its cars, they like it to be distinguishable. Take a Vauxhall Insignia, and put all of its VXR bodywork on it. Now there is no getting away that this must be a fast version of the Insignia.

The sleeper crown would have to go to the Germans though, which isn't surprising considering it is going to a country where the most lusted after acronym right now is TDi. A good sleeper would be the very unique VW Passat W8. The engine was very special and complex, but the raw figures are 275bhp and 0-60 in 6 seconds. More importantly, the car looks like a normal Passat, so you get to embarrass any kid in his Ford Fiesta who tries to take you on.

Would you ever guess this Passat had 8 cylinders and 4WD?

This is why I want to own a sleeper. People would pull up next to you at the lights, and you would completely blow them away. Unfortunately, most chavs tend to do the complete opposite: make their Civic the loudest, blingest thing in the world, but keep that 1.4L engine. Even worse, they add a really loud exhaust for an engine that really doesn't deserve it.

So, does the concept of a sleeper sound appealing? It should do, otherwise you must be a massive show-off and therefore nobody likes you.