In an ideal world, we would all be able to do what we love for a living. I must admit that since I've decided to fully commit to 3D cars again about a year ago, I'm doing well for myself and my family, and very close to "living the dream", but still AC is only a small part of it, got some money coming from certain projects, but it doesn't take 100% of my work time as I have more profitable assets to produce outside the scene.
In order to fully commit to AC modding (cars and maybe tracks) I would need to make a living out of it, but I know this community won't support it, and most likely I'll get buried alive for doing something like that (then I'll have to hear about license and ****, that modding should be for free, and crap like that).
In a perfect world, I would start a Patreon campaign, offer 1 car a month, with monthly subscriptions from $1 to $3 USD, offering early access to the supporters and exclusive stuff like that.
In the end, it'll only take at least 1500 supporters (paying only $1 to $3 a month) to make a decent salary that it'll allow me to dedicate most if not all my time to doing AC mods, that they all be available for free to the community.
Anyway, back to reality