The subject car appears to be a precursor of the Ulrich car with the cast metal sides. Ulrich was certainly heavily into die casting in the late fifties. I wonder if he was selling non-die cast kits earlier. Like this one.
Yes, earlier Ulrich kits varied in a number of ways. I have an early Ulrich twin hopper with wood parts -- later those were gone. And some early brass parts were later replaced with die-cast.
On the topic of this box car, as a novice modeler in the mid-1950s, I was given an unfinished kit of this car, ALL die-cast parts. I still have it, still not completed because of the botched aspects of what was done first. I've thought of posing it on the layout as a car under repair.
