i've refrained from sharing my opinion because i wanted to see you guys duke it out
Here's what I think.
It's a rehab/rebuild.
Here's why:
the wheels look like weber wheels, and the frame, size, and accessories of the cart look original.
the boards and bowl are clearly not original.
my guess is the original kettle and cart got ruined. left open in the rain or something that caused it to rust out and the 'decking' of the cart got destroyed as well. Someone stripped the boards off, leaving just the frame. They rebuilt it from there with different wood (and slightly different arrangement)
a few notes on some other theoretical reasonings:
- it's painted. this means that whoever had it or built it didn't really care about maintaining the original vintage value.
Nowww, if someone were to build that cart from scratch - why bother with details like the wheels and accessories and shape of the handles if they clearly don't care about maintaining the originality of the cart.
For all we know, the original owner could have wanted to upgrade to a one-touch. So he bought a new grill only to realize it wouldn't just 'swap out' so he went to work modifying his sequoia to hold the new grill. His last resort was to tear out all the boards and rebuild with with whatever he had around the garage. When he was done, the grill fit - but the colors didn't match - so he painted it.