Conversation starters

I was reading this article on how JDM cars vary from U.S. imports, and ran across the notion that they are conversation-starters. With whom, I wondered, would I be starting up a conversation about Japanese Domestic Model performance cars? Some 26-year-old gearhead who understands more about the perfect wheelbase for drifting than I understand about my own kids? Some girl I’m trying to chat up while cruising the theater, thumping drum-and-bass (much to my wife’s consternation)? My mechanic, who barely has time to get dressed in the morning? A shade-tree mechanic uncle who stopped working on cars since “them computers came around” and engine compartments got so tight you can’t pour water through to the ground?

This is the pain of writing (and therefore reading) for an audience too far in place and scope beyond your daily life: all the people you can talk to about it are, effectively, statistical entities with no phone number of email address.