It really was! No visible rust, and as of 2017 it had only droven 140.000 km. And rust is probably one of the main reasons cars like this are so rare now, meaning this probably was not winter droven. But it seems like it failed inspection, although you'd think an enthusiast could be interested in it.
I really hate it when scarce, older cars get scrapped. In the early years, there are tons of them, and naturally some don't last for very long. Slowly the pool of cars shrink, year by year, until only a very few are left.
At this point, it becomes really important to think very carefully before scrapping one of the last remaining cars. Even if a car is "faulty" or "flawed", the question needs to be asked: is it better or worse than the other remaining ones?
This one looked quite good, so in my opinion, it should have been preserved, one way or another.