Dealers like to sponsor clubs that buy cars they sell. It is cheep advertising for them. Most of the members should live within 30 minutes if you are going to get good meeting attendance. I have quit the last two car clubs because they get bogged down in parliamentary procedure.
I work with a couple of the dealers in the Portland area, but neither is a direct sponsor of the Portland Area HSD Meetup Group. We don't stand on procedure, we have fun. Check out our site: PortlandHSD.info