I sincerely hope that car people, or truck people for that matter, are just that. Hopefully, like me, every reader of ours can appreciate trucks, SUVs, classic trucks, mini-trucks, cars, street rods, musclecars, import cars, motorcycles - street or dirt - Harley or import, boats - yes, boats - and sandrails, for what they are all worth in terms of what enthusiasts magazines can provide. You see, I enjoy all of these things as I would like to think all of our readers would enjoy them as well. Do I have preferences for one vehicle or subject matter over the others? Of course, that is human nature.
But here's the rub; you see, while you and I may like one brand of vehicle more than another, I can certainly appreciate the others for what they are. My personal biases here are this: I am not a fan of import cars, period. However, I do love anything well-engineered, well-constructed, and, well, just plain fast. While I do not particularly love imports, I can certainly appreciate that you can buy, build, and race an import car that runs on four cylinders, and in many instances, will run low 12-second quarter-mile time slips with just minor tweakings. Put that same vehicle in the hands of a good, quality builder, and it can run 9-10s easily, with well-engineered parts and construction.
The same goes with street rodders. While I may not necessarily want to build an old street rod from the '30s or '40s, if you have ever seen an exceptionally built one, in the back of your mind you are simply drooling over the car. Does that mean you would want to build one? It might, given the right set of circumstances. You also may want to adapt some street-rod-style build quality to a current project of yours, say, an old classic truck. Heck, even by today's standards we are seeing more and more '90s trucks built with the same level of attention to detail that is commonly seen in the street-rod market.
Do I love old musclecars and old trucks, or new trucks and new SUVs? Of course, I do. You see, when I was a kid growing up, and when I was old enough to finally know the difference between a cool weekend and/or show car or truck and a daily driver, I soon learned what it took to build a show-quality car or truck. I began with a '70 Chevrolet Nova that was officially mine. Oh sure, I built a big small-block and put way too much cam in it because not only did I want to smoke the big guns with my car, I also thought it sounded cool to roll up to a stoplight with a rumpity, rumpity, rump-sounding car and a much too loud of an exhaust system with turn-down exhaust pipes that exited just ahead of the rear end. And, yes, when you are 16 or 17 years old, what I thought at the time was a way-cool show car that should easily have won lots of trophies, turned out in actuality to be a really clean driver with way too much camshaft.
So today, I am a truck guy and really don't want to drive, own, or ride in a car, because something in my mind tells me I am sitting too low in the seat. That could also be the reason why I haven't rebuilt the old Nova I still own. Even a 'bagged and body-dropped truck sits and rides higher than a stock car's ride height. But again, I can truly appreciate what it takes to own, drive, ride, like to sit in, and sit on any of the aforementioned vehicles. Why? Because, like you, I also hope everyone can appreciate what they drive and are interested in - something they think is cool.
I guess that would also mean you have to define cool, and cool to me may not be cool to you. However, I certainly think everyone can see any car, truck, motorcycle, sandrail, boat, dragster, and so on somewhere for the first time and just simply say, "Cool, bitchin', sick, tuff," whatever. You get the point. True car people's conversations will always eventually revolve to get back to something involving cars, parts, paint schemes, drivetrains, and so on. Even after discussing everything there is to discuss with your friends about their kids, houses, vacations, every conversation will seemingly get back to cars. Why is that? I can only guess. So, "Are you really a true car person?"