Sorry for the late reply. I just saw this.
More air displacement = more bass felt. not necessarily heard. For example, pro audio subs will rarely have more than 10mm of excursion. Even for the top dogs. However, they still pound like a sub with 30mm of excursion. It's more about surface area than air displacement. I used to DJ in night clubs, and big events, out of San Diego. I tried making a better sub using higher excursion subs and it didn't make a difference. That's when I got into building and designing sound systems for night clubs throughout southern cali.
it's because the enclosure does work.
in sealed or IB, excursion and cone area is the only source of sound. the more air the speaker moves, the louder it is.
in anything above that though, the enclosure can actually be the source of sound. Excursion of a woofer in a ported enclosure is actually lowest at the port tuning (not including below f3) - and the air movement in the port is very high. The port does the work. That system displaces a lot of air at port tuning, even though the cone moves less. Heard and felt are the same though man, above 30 hz. Or more realistically for pro audio, 35-40 at the lowest. A lot of pro audio woofers peak at like 60 lol. Most songs aren't hitting below 35 with rare exceptions. It's not like low-mid 20's where it's actually more felt than heard.
Those pro woofers sound good because they play from bass (60 hz) up to like 800 hz, high sensitivity, good response. It sounds super snappy and sharp, but it doesn't actually have loud low end (45-50 hz down) output. Main reason is they're designed to just radiate music over a large area (they're pro audio) so they make them efficient and sound good enough, and it's done. Getting loud under 40 hz in an open crowd is probably just impossible. We're in a car though. The air space is nothing compared to where pro audio is normally used. We can make a setup play flat and low no problem with unreal SPL.
I think it's a skill issue homie
Getting a low and loud, high and loud, loud loud, loud loud loud, demo in a car at a car show can happen. Way more powerful than a venue can have
