First of all welcome.
As for the castings - it could be the case that rather than splash out on new dies for the FE model, they knocked up some sand moulds quickly for a short run. Cheaper option i'd say.
The colour of the red might be different - how does it look in comparison to the 999? It might be that the 999 red is slightly different and rather than get an old batch of red they've used the new 999 red.
Just some thoughts based on production efficiencies
