1,500 is cheap for a Wrangler.
It sounds like he took 2 Wranglers and built 1 that works so you'll probobly be tinkering with the thing till the end of days.
My assumption would be he got sick of working on it and want's to pass the "project" on to somone else.

If your looking for something to drive I'd keep looking. If your looking for a project that you don't mind tearing apart and putting back together the price seems decent.