One way of looking at it might be if you were talking to an owner of a different car, one that is readily identifiable, but you don't really know that much about it. Mentioning a detail on the car or history you thought was accurate, might be way off in that person's eyes.
I know very little about the General Lee for example. I could mention something about 69 Chargers or they used about 300 of these in the filming, and to some that would be close enough, and to others it would be way off because of some sort of detail. Same might be true if I saw an A-Team van, or Ecto-1, or KITT car, etc.
I'd say most people are just genuinely trying to chat and kind of be excited with you about your car. Most people aren't going to be super educated on our cars, or much else in life generally. What is a passion for some is just a headline for others.
Now, the guys that come up and try to shine you up on their misinformation telling their friends about how heavy your car is, or the aluminum panels, or the coke jokes or whatever, that's different. The cocky a-hole type is usually easy to tell apart from the rest. Not always, but most of the time.
The coke jokes alone tend to tell me the guy is a knob, as most people I know wouldn't spout that sort of thing off unless they were trying to be a bit of a dick. To me, someone thinking it has a Ford V8 in it is a different type of comment than someone that jabs you with a JZD coke comment. That's pretty much the differentiator for me.
None of it really matters though. Cause as soon as you turn away from the coke joke guy, there's someone else with a big grin that you can try again with. Now, stuck in a hotel room with your family, that might be trickier