It's a Mecum auction. I went to a Mecum auction. The cars were shit.
Also, define "rusty." Surface rust isn't a problem. The GNX's weren't undercoated. That's normal. Rot is a different story.
And "hard" life as a race car is probably not accurate. If it's made it to 42,000 miles on the original running gear, it wasn't flogged hard.