Nor did I until I read a very interesting article about this in LRM.I did not know this.
I had cause to investigate this in France where it is much easier to find out your rights. Over there the "write off" rules are quite harsh, i.e. this thing just doesn't happen and you do have to accept the write off value UNLESS the car is of "historical interest". So it could be argued, perhaps that a Series 1 would deserve to be rebuilt but a car like the one in question, my D2, would not! (I got it fixed with secondhand parts and everyone was happy.)