Huh. While I agree wholeheartedly with the OP, if I recall correctly, in another thread I suggested the idea that "car guys should be car guys, and come together no matter what they drive" and the idea went over like a fart in church.
Not quite. To paraphrase a bit, what you suggested was "car guys should be car guys, and come together no matter what they drive,
all the time", and it was the last portion of your idea that went over like a fart in church.
You didn't like the idea of car shows focusing on some cars while excluding others, and felt to protect the hobby we needed to include every one who was into cars and focus on their likes as well as our own.
To your position, and that of the OP, yes... we can all be car guys and come together no matter what we drive, and express appreciation for the likes, cars, and projects of others, but that doesn't mean we want to, in an automotive hobbyist sense, move in with them. I can appreciate my neighbor's nice house and yard without feeling the need to move in with him 24/7. Rather, I would prefer to live in my own home, which I like better, and do my own thing when I'm not outside talking to him. And as with most neighbors, I wouldn't appreciate him coming in my house whenever he wants, taking my chair, drinking my beer, and telling me what shows to watch.
Same deal goes for cars. I can appreciate what others like or are doing, but when I'm in my "home", be it a dedicated internet forum or a car show, I might not be as welcoming to anyone who wants to come in and make himself at home. If I'm at a classic car show, I want to see, hear, and discuss classic car stuff, not see a bunch of Fast & Furious wannabee imports, discuss the performance gains of strobe light extravaganzas and fart can mufflers, and listen to music I've never heard of... but I can also fully support folks who are into that stuff having their own show without me demanding they allow my "old school" car in and play The Beach Boys. I think we all need to be courteous to one another, but we should also show respect and understanding for why any group of like-minded people have chosen to get together and honor what they like rather than ask them to honor what we like. Speaking presently, we're on this forum because we want to focus our valuable gathering time on B-body Mopars. If we wanted to spend it on Mopars, we would be spending time on a Mopar site, or a general car site if that's what we wanted to focus on. The car hobby is vast and growing by the day, and there's lots of room in it for everyone without the need to press any one to be into something they are not.
Simply put, if everyone
actually did have the mindset that we should all come together as car guys and show equal appreciation and deference to all cars, this forum, and forums like it, simply wouldn't exist. None of us would get any enjoyment out of the focus on one particular marque yet alone body style. We would all be on one homogenous car forum all the time. Since that's not the case, I think it can be said that we do in fact all like having our own little house where we can come to and focus on what we like. We can appreciate the other guys, but we still don't want them sitting in our chairs, drunk on our beer, and having access to the remote.