Homemade downdraft intake

[Onlybackroads]

I picked this little guy up at Turlock today for $15, pretty interesting home-made manifold. I've never done any kind of speedy things to a model a, but I couldn't pass this up and might someday use it. Any opinions on this thing from what you can see in the pictures? I was told it might accept a chevy 1-barrel, I have no idea about downdraft carburetors so maybe some folks could school me on it, and if this thing would work fine or if it's just a wall hanger/conversation piece. The flange is definitely an odd shape. I definitely like things like this on cars though, farm ingenuity is more exciting to me than high-dollar "buy-and-bolt" things (no offense, if I had a massive wallet I wouldn't mind buying all kinds of aluminum this and that.)