Basset recorder – why bass clef?

I just bought a plastic basset recorder, and the makers sensibly include a fingering chart in both bass and treble clef. That begs the question, why bother with bass clef for the basset, when its lowest note is only 3 ledger lines below the treble clef? Bass clef needs an 8 above the clef sign to write readable basset music. Is the bass clef just historical? I can see it may make sense if you have a great bass or contrabass – but I wonder how many of us own one of those.

Thanks, Max