Sometime in the mid 1990's the the vents on the A-car were modified by the guys in the transportation garage at Universal Studios. The lower vent sections that normally wrap around the fascia to be flush with the tail lights were cut and welded to look like what you see in that reference photo. The point of the modification was to allow the engine cover to be raised and lowered without having to remove the lower half of each vent. Normally this requires removing a few dozen button head screws with an allen wrench and is time consuming.
An old ref photo of the A car in 1986 or so prior to modifications.
http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?at...9&d=1571167776
And the restored A car with the vents fixed to look as they originally did:
http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?at...8&d=1571167263
The design intent of the vents are to hug as tightly as possible to the fascia to make it look as though the vents are actually cutting through the car. For them to be "real" and function, big chunks of the fascia and tail lights are supposed to appear as though they were chopped out to allow the vents to pass through.