Cool story, Lynne. It reminds me of something similar that happened to my cousin in the late 70s. Out of high school he made a very good living buying old, distressed cars, fixing them up both body work and mechanically, and reselling them.
His ambition was to own a new Corvette. One day while driving home in his "work" clothes after having bought a junker at a car auction, he stopped at a local Chevrolet dealership. A sharply dressed salesman met him as he parked the car, and asked if he could help him. Long story short, the salesman laughed at him when he asked to drive a Corvette, telling him only "serious customers" could test drive cars, especially Corvettes. With that my cousin pulled out a wad of cash and counted out over $10K. He then walked out of the dealership with the salesman in hot pursuit.
A couple days later he bought his Corvette from a rival dealer for cash. Over the next few months he made a point of stopping in the first dealership when in the area in the car to rub their nose in it.