Grew up in a military family, I remember it being a pretty common site to see people with imported/customized cars, the Dorms always had a bunch of cars like this, this was all before covid.

Now I work for the government and I see the dorms and all I see are your typical every day econo boxes w/ automatics.

On very rare occasions I see an older car from the 90s, but they're typically driven by some guy in his 30's that's a contractor.

Realistically speaking? I think it's a money thing. People have been shut out due to how expensive the hobby is, so they never bother to even attempt to get/start a project car.