The 2 vac ports with cuts joining the runners below them were used exactly that way on stock Fords, mid-1930's through about '39. Closest manifolds I have seen to that, but without forward carb pad, were 1930's ones made for Fords using really big generators, possibly ambulance or emergency vehicles...I think whoever made this may have started with molds from something like that!
My memory is probably very poor; but, in 1941 Ford had a "Police Special" engine. It had aluminum heads with about four fins, Ford script and a two carb intake with Chandler 94s mounted.
Could this intake that mounts the carbs backwards be one of these 1941 intakes? I don't know---but I got the same intake recently in a batch of parts.