You're right that too many people confuse physical strength with strength of character and virtue.  

Unfortunately, I see this identification of interest in cars as a manly thing, on supposedly macho men playing sports as the only ideal seminary candidates, as playing into the physical strength angle -- that "real men" make "real priests" with flexing biceps and six-pack abs -- the Church's version of Captain America, with those nebulous "manly virtues" supposedly evidenced by physical strength.  There are many types of fragility, many types of strength.