As an early-40s male who has owned triple-digits numbers of old cars, who plans his vacations around junkyards and car shows, who owns rental properties to hog the garage space, who works in the industry (by choice); I'd like to make a few responses to your post.
1) Thank you. I know your post is well-intended and comes from a "good place", if that doesn't make me sound too much like this guy...
2) I'm not bothered by shipping these cars overseas. For one thing, they're are going to the "good" countries, not the sh**hole places you'd never want to visit. When I went to Germany in 2003, it was great sport finding fish-otta-water vehicles like a Pontiac Transport in one of those little villages that looks like you could eat the houses, or a Dodge Ram truck pulling a horse trailer through a mountain pass. As long as we have greater supply of dumbasses pulling 383s, 400s & 440s for their bondoed '75 Duster project than we do of people doing this...
...then we might as well send them to places where they cost too much money to do this...
...and for cripes sakes even building "replicas"!
3) The old car hobby is a great way to express your individuality. The problem is that most (but not all)
people don't think their projects through, and/or just have terrible taste. That means when someone bails on their old car because they get "stumped" by a carburetor accel pump, I swoop in and buy it. Then I put their $2000 made-in-China rims and $2000 stereo system on Craigslist for $500 (and be happy when I can get $300). I'll bet this car is lotsa fun to drive when I can't use 70% of the damn steering wheel. And if I want to sit on my *** and watch TV, that's why I have a living room... or even a cellphone that goes anywhere I want.
Mods from stock can be cool, but they generally look more like this:
So in conclusion, please don't take this the wrong way. We are probably the last generation who escaped being beaten over the head about how bad/dangerous/etc. cars are, and how much I should love the "virtual world" of mom's basement. I have the same fears that there will be no generation after ours. But at the same time, I've come to realize that they're aren't enough Americans to keep
this thing of ours going. We're going to have to share and welcome new blood wherever we can find it. Second, bad-taste is bad taste. I don't want a car that looks like a stagecoach.
Nor do I plan to spend $15000 for a GenIII Hemi swap that saves me $100 a year on fuel. Yesterday I drove around all day in a 318-2 Dodge Magnum and had zero trouble keeping up with traffic. Part of that car's charm is how well it runs in 2016 using ancient technology like a carburetor, mechanical distributor and a transmission with a liquid-mechanical brain... Much like my own.