[daveaite]

Okay first of all, your forum was never "alive". You only have 133 members after 3 years, you know your not doing something right.

Consider:

Writing professional articles about cars on sites like Ezines, and have links that lead to your site embeded within the article

Join other forums and start posting, include in your signature your forum link

Definately change the sites look. Especially for new forums, looks is what will get people looking an exttra second, then you'll need content. Why should ppl choose your site for info?

Make it feel like home. Grey is not the best color :P

Backlinks, backlinks, backlinks. The more you have, the greater the chance of someone landing to your site. Also google will count them up and compare them to other car forums. Whoever has more gets placed first.