[Mike V. Florida]

What part of the hobby are you talking about?

Stock
Modified
Hot rod
Fine point

These are separate branches or the model a tree.

This site was started as a place to go for restoration of the Model A. While side bars happen occasionally, the main thrust is stock restoration. You can look up the site owners comments on the purpose of the site.

Now lets take a look at some specifics in your comments,

"...there are endless discussions among the same few about minute and obscure details that almost no one cares about."

As mentioned above this forum was founded on restoration.

"...it's no secret that original cars are slooowww, hard to drive and shift, have no sound system, vibrate a lot, are somewhat unsafe, etc. etc. "

I have been luck enough to drive in a properly restored Model A. They start easy, steer easy, the lights are bright, they stop easy, and they go 60+ MPH.

Yes there is no built in sound system but some are happy listening to the music of the car. Safe, there is different aspects of safe. The safest cars are the cars built today.

As for "attacks" when ones long held beliefs are questioned there is often hostility. It is hard to defend ones self when all you have to go by is "that's the way I have always done it." It is easier when you have others that do it the same way. One must realize that there is more then one way to skin a cat.

Again there are different aspects of the model A hobby. One needs to find what they want to do and find the source of help that fits that need. There are a whole lot of people here with all kinds of experience in many areas of the hobby. There are sites that specialize in some areas and site for other areas. Those that enjoy text book restorations have a limited source of online resources and and tend to go a little overboard in defending this site. There is another site that used to be the number one place to go, politics, name calling and the like have turned it into a ghost town. If it were not for one poster, the site would go weeks without anything new.

Enjoy your A, seek out and drive a truly restored one and you will see that alot of the notions you have are a little off.

I hope I did not offend you with this post.