My take on this question is based on personal experience. In the late 70's and early 80's I hung out at a custom van shop with my Pinto Cruising Wagon. I ended up with dual sunroofs and a custom crushed velvet interior that was out of this world, not to mention chrome double basket wire wheels and a killer stereo. I actually did the interior myself as I was pretty good at it. I think people customize more "normal" cars than exotics because exotics are pretty much out there anyway. If you can afford a new Corvette, Porsche, Ferrari or anything similar, you will have already made something of a statement with the car, for better or worse. "Normal" cars though, are what people grew up with, took their first date out in, went to the prom in, discovered love and romance in, and took away to college. Most folks don't do that in flashy cars. Pintos were never really flashy per se, but now they have a certain cachet about them, they are fun and nostalgic. I think people today are beginning to feel about the 70's the way people in the 70's felt about the 50's, you know, a simpler time when good was good and evil was evil. Think about this, the most popular television shows for the largest part of the 70's were "The Waltons", "MASH" and "Happy Days", all shows about different eras, and other than MASH, about simpler times. I'm a college professor, and when I tell my students gas cost me $.59 a gallon when I started driving they can't believe it. I tell them I remember $.12 and $.13 per gallon, but I wasn't driving then, and that was before OPEC came onto the scene. I drive my Cruising Wagon to class once in a while, and they howled when I showed them photos of the original, but they would love to have one themselves.