Maybe just a guess here, but it is a well-known fact that Model A commercial vehicles received parts that were rejected for use on passenger cars. And to some degree, even the venerable pickup truck was often loaded with such cosmetically defective parts. These "seconds" were usually painted black to hide the defects in plating or stainless steel, such as headlight buckets and radiator shells. Even emergency brake handles and shift levers that had plating problems were painted black and installed in commercial trucks, presumably on the theory that only hired workmen would drive the vehicles and not care if the plating was perfect. These vehicles had rough working lives ahead of them, so who worried if a new AA truck was delivered with flawed appointments that had been painted black at the factory?
In this shell's case, since there is no obvious buckling, bulging or signs of an accident that would surely be present if the vehicle had been in an accident, it seems likely that this shell was one of those "seconds" that was installed at the factory and made its way into a company's rolling stock, possibly at a discounted price. The fact that this shell was attached to the radiator on the car that Tom Grz bought and no fit or appearance problem was noted until after the radiator had been repaired tells me that the workers at the Ford plant "adapted' this shell to fit properly over the radiator - although that would have taken quite an effort and a lot of time to do. I would like to know if the shell's mounting holes are in the usual places or if they had been drilled somewhere else on the shell to make it fit the radiator. Or perhaps the radiator itself was reworked to fit the shell??? Unless some past owner fesses up here and admits that he modified the shell himself, I guess we'll never know for sure how this shell ended up so cattywompas. But since 1931???
Marshall
