Considering '74 2.0 from TheSamba, One owner car in Mission Viejo CA Options

[BigDBass]

Texan ebay seller of a '75 candidate ended the auction early, so I got nowhere with that.

This car (link) has been listed for awhile and I haven't seen it mentioned at the non-club. I wonder if anyone has seen or knows anything about it.

I spoke to Pete, the VW/Porsche mechanic who is selling the car for a customer. Parts of the conversation turned me off but I'm not quite ready to end my interest in this one. However, some aspects make me question the asking price.

• While advertised as having "no rust", there is some rust bubbling on the cowl below the windshield, and one of the rocker covers is pretty rusty. Underside seems clean, insists longs and jackpoints are good without having removed rocker covers.
  
• Oil leak, reportedly pushrod tube seals. (Do all 914s suffer from this?)
  
• Battery has been moved to rear trunk.
  
• Stock radio replaced with an AM/FM/Cassette from BMW.
  
• New rear rotors, remachined front rotors, rebuilt calipers and new pads on all four corners along with new flexible brakelines.
  
• Claims it has "every option" although he didn't check for factory swaybars or other non-Appearance Group options.
  

The strange part of the conversation was that he seemed to really be trying to sell additional mechanical work. He was willing to drop the price significantly in conjunction with swapping in a 0 mile GEX rebuilt 2.0L motor with warranty. (I've heard bad things about GEX) Additionally, he offered to convert it to carbs, and disagreed when I said I prefered FI, citing lack of availability of parts. I'm not interested in these things, just mentioning it because of the "pitch".

Anyone familiar with the car or seller, or in the Mission Viejo area for a PPI if I get that far?