Update! We got an email from experienced hot rod Journo, Chris Shelton, this week (thanks Chris!) with an update on this cool Stromberg 48 based siamesed carb:

I think I can shed some light on this crazy 4×2 setup.  I wrote the story about Navarro’s roadster in the February ’10 R&C. Barney built that car in the late ’40s—as far as we can tell his engine and the one he built for his then-employee Tom Beatty were the first Flathead Fords if not first V-8 engines ever to get Roots-type superchargers. So that sort of goes with the story that this assembly came to pass in the late ’40s.

The engine that Barney built for that car reportedly exists but Scott Perrott said he couldn’t talk the owner out of it and that it lacked the blower and carburetor adapter anyway. He was forced to recreate the induction system and he did so by Barney’s instructions. Here’s how he described it.

“The hard thing was fitting all those carburetors over the opening in the blower. The holes don’t go straight down; they go at an angle. There’s also a slot cut in it so you can get to the bolts to tighten everything down. I mean it was just a lot of work for a very simple thing that turned out not to be.” But by the benevolence of Scott’s friend, Bob Coutts, it and the other difficult-to-make parts found new life. “He’s just one of these guys who’s been racing his whole life and working out of a little one-man machine shop. He and I are longtime friends and he can make anything I want. And he makes me do all the things that he doesn’t want to do.”

Click here for a photo of the finished product. 

Now did Barney remember exactly how he built that induction system? If so, did Scott understand exactly what Barney described? Supposedly Barney approved of the recreation but there’s a chance that he would’ve politely nodded in approval even if they got it wrong. I met Barney once or twice and he seemed like a thoughtful man.

There’s a good chance that the modified assembly could’ve been a design revision. That would give the carburetors a straighter shot into the narrow 4-71 opening and I can see Barney seeing potential in that. Regardless, that assembly really looks as if it was intended for a blown application