Sometimes the seller is afraid they are selling too cheap.
If the owner didn't get mad at the idea of selling, give them print outs of a number of very similar cars and the prices they recently sold for. Then informed negotiations can take place. Once comfortable they know what they have and they aren't giving it away, the owner might sell. In comparing, they will have to look hard on their own car and what it actually is, good and bad.
It's great to get a bragging deal, but paying a fair price instead of getting a run away means you get it, where everybody before you failed.
On the highway I traveled there was a black 1957 Chevy 2 door hardtop. Painted on the windshields front and rear, was a large: "NO". I tend to take people at their word, so I never stopped to ask. It's sat there for 20 years, and then it was gone. What I missed by not being the guy who rudely knocks on the door anyway, was a 1969 Formula S Fastback with a 340. I saw the car and the new owner said he asked about the '57, answer was no, but it happened to be the time to sell a Plymouth. The Plymouth in the machine shed was $600 (less than 10 years ago) I was told the '57 was paid for and it took all those years for the guy to finally pick it up.
