First of all I want to make clear I did not mean that as in insult or a provocation, I apologize if I offended someone. I'll try to explain myself a little more in detail.
I've lived in the US for 8 years, in 3 different states. I'm not saying that sentence for no reason. The "love affair with the car" you talk about does not really exist. As you said, the car is a necessity, and that's exactly what people over there see it as: the only mean of transportation, not something to enjoy.
There are many enthusiasts, no doubt about it, looking at this forum makes it very clear, we're all people that know and cherish the history of cars. I also know in person people like that, of course. For example, the entire family of a very good friend of mine from Colorado (now in TX) loves their BMW's and Porsches. But still, I don't feel that it reflects the average car buyer in America. Most cars you see on the streets are cheap cars (often Asian, as they do offer great prices for decent cars) that don't have anything to say. They simply get the owner from point A to point B. Most people, especially in the newer generations, have no idea about the history of any of the car brands they buy, though, not even Ford which has a long and illustrious history and it's American.
That's definitely different in Europe, where I have random people stopping me on the road to talk about the history of my car and their car, and telling me about random things such as their love affair with the Busso engine and so on. We have our fair share of car ignorants as well, of course, but here there are definitely a lot more people that love cars for their history and what they represent, and not just what they look like or what fancy technology they have on their on board computer.
I feel that the vast majority of people in America don't have any emotion when it comes to cars, they see them as tools needed to move around, and nothing more. That's very different here. For example, my dad owns an Alfa Romeo dealership since 1979, so he's been through the entire "bad Alfa era" and guess what, most of the customers he had back then stuck with Alfa and are still buying Alfas today, simply because they love what Alfa represents in the history of cars.
Maybe I did not meet the right people when living over there, or I was in the wrong cities, but my experience with the average American is one that I would describe as "car ignorant" (I realize it sounds bad, I simply mean someone who doesn't know or care about what a car represents and/or its history). Being that most successful cars in the history of racing are from Europe (with Ford clearly being an exception), and since most supercars are also from Europe, I'd that's fairly normal.
Again, I apologize if I offended someone, I hope I explained myself a little better.