Elan Strut curiosity

[bitsobrits]

When refurbishing the struts on my 66 S3 FHC I found the alloy housings on the two sides to be different once decades of crud and corrosion had been removed. Nothing too unusual on a 50 year old car, right?

The right side (left in photo) appears to be sand cast with a different profile than the left side which has obvious die cast marks, not to mention the issue 16 markings. Both have the narrow inner bearing.

The curious part is that the damper tubes with original Armstrong markings both have a 3/66 date code. Do you suppose the car was originally built this way?

Interestingly, the interiors of the housings were pristine (no rust or corrosion) with no evidence they had ever been opened before.