I bought a 71 Demon 340 tribute this summer. The body work was done & was set up as a good driver quality car to have some fun with. My dad's favorite of all his Mopars was his 71 Demon 340, the one that got away. After years of having the dream of getting one it finally came together this summer.
FF to a couple months ago I see a post on a local Mopar FB group page of someone looking for his late dad's old Demon that he had tracked down to being registered in my county. The pics look eerily familiar, so I pull out the printed out build photos of the Demon I bought. I message the dude with a photo of the fender tag, he sends me a photo of his paperwork, and it's a match. He found his late father's drag Demon.
Then reality hits: if I'm willing to sell, how much do I sell it to him for? I told him I'm willing to sell if I can be made whole by finding a similar quality Demon to buy, and that is probably north of what I spent on this Demon + all the actual $ I've put into it in real fixes, let alone my time. He coughs it down and says he will do what it takes including selling another car he has etc etc and we'll be in touch.
Long story short, he's not able to buy the car, I'm asking way too much. He was really expecting it to be in the same condition it was in 2012 when his dad sold it. I've tried being creative with him and as transparent & flexible as I could be, but I can't even get him to throw out a number that would work for him, says we're too far apart. Am I being unreasonable? I mean he found his dad's car that was a big part of his childhood, working on it together at some level, but it's not doable because of today's value.
Is there another way to approach this that I'm not thinking of? I don't feel it's my responsibility to take a loss on it to fulfill someone else's dream when it's fulfilling my own in a way. Anyone experience something like this from either side of the equation?