I bet we all have one of these.
The story.....here goes.
I heard about the truck in the summer last year. The fellow that owned it passed. His sister gave it to his best friend. He held on to it for several months thinking about what he would do with it. He decided a month ago to sell it.
I heard it was for sale at our club meeting. As he was a member....I went over and introduced myself and asked if it was in fact for sale? Yes. Could I come over and have a look? Yes.
I went over and liked what I saw. Asked what he wanted for it. We finally got a price (a knockout price to low to mention) and I said I'll take it. He then tells me he couldn't sell it to me as he had promised it to a friend of his who would act as the middleman for the sale. I was a little frustrated to say the least. I left.
A few days later, yup, that's right, the middleman calls me. He wants more money (of course). We haggled and finally settle on a still better than average price. Good, I thought, an agreement albeit verbal, but a done deal. Now I'm excited.
Two hours later.....he calls back to tell me it sold to someone else. Ok, now I'm pissed! How does this happen? Simple. Another club member told the middleman he wants this as one of the ones the middleman owed him for buying lots of cars from him in the past. I knew this fellow was going to just turn it over for profit as he doesn't build or work on cars.
A week passes and I find out from a friend of mine that's exactly what happened. It sells to, now follow along here, to another club member who builds cars. This fellow knew the original fellow who had passed and was the one that picked up the truck and delivered it years ago to the fellow that had passed.
Are you still with me?
So, knowing it will get street rodded, I called the lastest owner and asked about the truck and what his plans were.......yup, street rod......but not for awhile as he has other projects on the go. What are you going to do with the original parts, I inquired? Sell them he said. We agreed on a price.
Well, it just kept going over in my mind. I called him back a few days later and asked if I could come out and see the projects he was working on.. Sure, come on over.
During my tour and conversation the truck came up. Right away he asked if I wanted to buy it. Well, by now......it was more than I had but it gave me hope.
As I was about to leave, the thought hit me of a trade. I told him about my '28 Tudor and by golly, he was interested.
He called two days later wanting to look at it. He came over and basically said yup, I like it, let's trade. The very next day we went to DMV and did the paperwork and yesterday we went and picked it up and brought it to my place.
I also found out, he had offered to buy the truck from the first fellow way back when. He was told he could buy it under the condition he would not "hot rod" it. Well, he couldn't promise that so he didn't get it.
Phew! That's the story.