Ever Wish You Had Better Persuasion Skills?

chromebumpers

solid fixture here in the forum
Staff member
It was 19 years to the day I met Twin bothers Dave and Doug, car collectors by default. When their father died 7 years ago they inherited the parents 6 acre property along with - among a load of may things, over 40 cars and trucks.
Although not all were anything to write home about, there were a few stand-outs that peaked my interest. Dad (“Bob”) was a machinist by day, a school board President by night and a hoarder to the tenth power. He was very abrasive and had few people that could tolerate his Archie Bunker attitude and ignorance.
I had many conversations with Bob, if you wanted to get along with him you simply agreed with his outlook and philosophies.
Thinking back to my late Saturday day morning visits, sitting in those over sized spring steel patio chairs while Bob sat at a make shift table with a half barrel of electrical parts and motors watching him pull the copper wires and with a delicate pair of pliers he would pull at little pieces here and there sorting everything into old drywall buckets at his feet. I managed to smile, an occasional chuckle while he repeated the same stories from weeks earlier. I was in the Navy as he was 20 years before me and that was the my “In” to being welcome there in the first place.
If you paid any attention to faint noises far off but not so far you couldn’t take a guess what was going on. The property bordered some public woods and a dry-bed stream on the ( “active” side). A highway and water estuary made up the other two sides. Any takers for the guessing game? That’s right, on the woods side, kids were slipping through the fence ready to pull parts. With parts list in hand they would just about make it to within 50 yards of where we sat. I can still hear the clinking wrenches, and the occasional grind of a hood forced open. This is about the time I started my photo collection of back yard gems wasting their way down into the dirt.

Every time I asked if I could rescue a car or a bike a story followed about someday Dave or Doug will want to restore it. D and D didn’t want anything to do with work - not happening.

Last night I got a message from Dave “call me” he said. It turned out to be some questions about someone they are looking for. I took this opportunity to ask about a couple cars, ‘65 Riviera GS and a ‘66 Charger with - of course, a Hemi! “Oh, the scrap company crushed all the cars, the house was torn down and we sold the land.”



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The GTO was sitting in the Police in pond lot. It was reported stolen and last owned by the insurance company. Bob bought the car at an auction (‘88) and D and D towed it back to the house. It was in much better condition and sat another 25 years rotting until I took pictures in 2014. Thieves striped the car of most of the good parts and still Bob refused to sell it to me for just the VIN labeled parts for $2000.…
 
I think many of us know of or knew of people that had cars we really wanted that they refused to sell , only to later find they sold the cars for pennies to scrap deallers etc.
I know I stopped at some old ladies house a dozen times to inquire about a 1965 GTO that was in her car port with no drive train,
I offered here $3K several times, and eventually found out she had it hauled off , given away for scrap/free once he husband died,
and she decided to sell the house years later (Id stopped by 4-5 times and left a contact number ) and the car sat for years after her husband passed.
 
In the past I was able to sway people to sell in person if I really wanted it.
Often offered 2-3 times current market values. Pontiacs parts.
I just knew someday value would rise to where it is today.
Always Old Timers like Grumpy that had.
They would tell me kid that is too much money.
Here is what I want $$, $$$, $$$$.
Most often they wanted to tell me stories and life experiences
Often thier Back in the Day Street Racing with Pontiac Heroics.
Just have to spend an entire day with, several days or even weeks.
At times pull a favor for them too.
 
I must admit, I only every offered stupid money once and that didn’t work. But you raised a good point, pay what you have to if you really want that car, you are only paying above the current market price and it will surely get to that point later.
 
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