I had a chat with MotoMan from the Toyota Owners Club of Australia, who were invited along to the cruise by a post from weaponx on their forums asking for numbers to make it a "big turnout" etc..
It seems that they felt like outsiders and were unwelcome at the event, nobody wanted to talk to them etc. From the toymods perspective I suppose it seemed that they were sticking together and didn't want to mix with us, and it was perhaps thought that they were a bit stuck-up.
I see this as a misunderstanding and quite unfortunate, we are all toyota owners, whether our cars are old or new... or even re-badged. Having had a chat with Dave (MotoMan) it's obvious that they share the same passion for toyota's as we do and like to modify their cars, all of the sportivo's had atleast cold air intake mods and were lowered. Remember also that these cars are less than 2 years old... there's not much you are going to do to a car when it's that young, especially with such a nice engine as the 2ZZ, which hammers quite nicely in stock form as it is, I'm sure Jezza can attest to this.
I'd like to see them at one of the future meets that we hold and perhaps have more of a chat with em about the newer toyotas.
It was a fantastic cruise, wish I'd had a passenger to take more photo's, heck even a stereo would have been sweet... let's be a bit more open to people next time we invite them to come along eh?

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