Why is it when you tell people you have/drive a 25 year old vehicle they automatically assume it's some janky ass shitbox before they even see it?

That's my '01 Malibu LS... 144k miles. A bit of a sleeper, back when I did machine work I had some performance parts left over for the 60\* V6 and did some work on it. It has a cam, set of shaved, ported/polished heads. Upper and lower intake ported/polished. Lower was port matched to heads. Exhaust manifolds matched to heads. LS valve springs. Bored throttle body, larger plate. Injectors, tuned. It's around 205-215hp. Not the fastest thing out there but over 30hp more than stock... and looks completely like it just pulled out of Oma and Opa's carport/garage.

But people hear "25 year old car" and they just go straight to "ewww it's old, must be a shitbox."

Just why? It's not like a 25 year can't still be nice.