Barn Find!, What should I do? Options

[oakdalecurtis]

A friend of mine, a high school counselor, called last week and asked me to come over to his recently deceased father’s farm. He said he wanted to show me something that he knew very little about, but thought I might. He took me out to his dad’s barn. Inside the barn, I saw a dusty car cover over a small car. When we pulled back the cover, underneath was an original orange 1972 914/6. Yep, 6 spark plugs! My friend said he didn’t know much about the car as he was 6’5” tall and “small cars weren’t his thing.” He recalled that his dad had bought the 914 new, but his dad didn’t ever drive it again after he developed diabetes, resulting in his foot being amputated over 40 years ago.
The car had 9,645 miles on the odometer! That’s right, less than 10,000 miles! My friend said that his dad had asked him to start the car every 6 months and run it for 5 minutes, which he dutifully did. He said it always fired right up when he used the jumper cables from a farm battery cart. I asked if we could start it. My friend went and got the battery cart, connected it and the 6 fired right up, sounded beautiful and ran perfectly! Unfortunately, the original tires were flat so I couldn’t test drive it.
Upon closer inspection, the body appeared flawless with no signs of rust. I polished off a small area of paint and the orange was still glossy. It’s a pretty dry climate here in central California. The interior, other than being a little dusty, was unblemished and showed no signs of wear. Everything looked intact and original. I would have included pictures but I forgot my phone on the trip.
My friend volunteered that he had briefly looked at 914’s for sale online and noted them selling mostly between 5 and 15 thousand dollars. He thought this one might need some tires, polish and TLC and offered it to me for $7,500 cash, saying “just bring a trailer and make it go away”.
Should I tell him, or just keep quiet and buy it for $7,500?