True car people are becoming a thing of the past

I think what @Princess Valiant is seeing is limited to her location and I can say that because I moved from CO to GA last year. Big cultural shift in CO over the past 5-10 years with all of the transplants, most of them coming from more expensive parts of the country so demand for everything went up and cost followed. That drove a lot of the folks with more modest means to give up unnecessary expensive hobbies or just leave the state entirely (like I did). Car culture in CO as it was when I was in my 20s (2010-2020) is all but dead; now it's either rich (or trying to look rich) people with high-dollar late model cars, boomers with restored numbers-matching muscle cars that never leave the garage, and farm kids rolling coal in their dad's old diesel pickup. It's almost impossible to find a project car of ANY year/make/model out there for a reasonable price and the demand from the younger generation is all oddball import stuff because they have an irritating hipster mentality ("old American cars are for bOoMeRs durr").

Since moving here I've been to multiple Cars & Coffee events, 2 at Carolina Dragway just 35 minutes from my house and the attendees were from the full spectrum of age and background. In this part of the country I think it's safe to say the hobby is alive and well. I was also thrilled to see how many more awesome project cars are available around here for sale at relatively decent prices and that's just online; I've also heard that around here there are older guys with projects they're willing to let go but don't bother with the internet and I can't really blame them.

Culture changes and being a gearhead isn't the norm anymore for younger people like it was 30-50 years ago but they definitely still exist, many of them not buying into the EV craze or wanting to devote all their time and energy to a virtual world on social media and video games. Apparently a significant portion of Gen Z (born after 2000) has a fondness for "outdated" tech of all kinds so I have hope. Surveys have shown that the kids who have grown up with the internet and digitized everything have seen the limitations as they are getting older, are realizing how much they've missed out on and are causing a resurgence of interest in "old-school" hobbies.