Now I get the thing and find why it looked strange: the owner must have wrecked it, and replaced the ENTIRE front end (shocks and all) with T4 parts. Needless to say, the T4 won't fit a T3 nose plate, but this guy tried....badly. It's the worst hack job I've ever seen on any RC car. (If he's a member here...SHAME, man.

At least the gearbox, CVDs, shocks, suspension arms, servo and motor are in good shape (worth the price paid).
So now my clean up/tighten up/new body and bash is going to become a full-blown rebuild. Time to break out the dremel and calipers...updates as they happen.