Another person recommended MITOC, which is MIT affiliated. If you'd like something more generic, I wholeheartedly recommend the Appalachian Mountain Club. As a single person, this was the easiest thing by far to attend by myself and not feel weird. There's a 20s and 30s group where I met some good friends. Come join us!

Ford is still sort of "all American"; their target market is more conservative than Cambridge. As far as the police, I think I heard that the Explorer interceptor is basically the only new police cruiser sold in America these days.

I think some factors you're seeing are that:

• Cambridge is a relatively wealthy place

• lots of tight spaces

• The local population is exceptionally socially progressive

Because Cambridge is wealthy, brands that target people with poorer credit such as Nissan are less common here. Because space is tight, large vehicles like SUVs and trucks are very rare, and those make up a large fraction of Ford, GMC etc's product line. Also the progressive population tends to favor electric cars and quirkier brands like Subaru.

I don't know about Saab, maybe we just have a large international population, some of whom like them?