[Marshall V. Daut]

Even back in the Model A days, companies were still making horse-drawn carriages and custom bodies for automobiles and trucks, mostly out of wood. Look through contemporary ads from the Model T era and you'll note that they are replete with such offerings. Tons of them! And in most cases the prices seem dirt cheap by today's standards. But a dollar was worth a dollar back then - unlike today. One wonders how a company could manufacture such items, sell them at affordable prices and yet still be profitable enough to stay in business? Custom commercial bodies from the cowl back were made during the Model A era and from the ads I have seen, were not very expensive, relatively speaking. It wasn't like having a custom body built for your Duesenberg by Buehrig! I would guess that the pictured delivery body was a standard company offering, hence reasonably affordable for small businesses. Yes, such things were more common during the Model T era, but innumerable photographic evidence and surviving vehicles prove that custom (or "off the rack") type of commercial bodies were available and in wide-spread use during the Model A era, too.
Marshall