The clear flutes at the back of the air box were designed to cool the inlet plenuim and there's no point in wasting useful cold air coming in from the front of the car. At idle they dont do much but once your moving they work. When testing this design I mounted a thermocouple to the wall of the plenium and I recorded inlet temps around 5 degrees cooler so the clear flutes/vents do a good job at cooling things down and preventing the air box from choking. A good flow of air is always available to cool the plenium when the car is moving.
Keep in mind that this car is very rarely sitting at idle in traffic and the cold air vents were designed with this in mind.

The perspex flutes do look rather special.

Basically you can't have a pressurized cold air intake for a NA car because your fuel measuring system won't like the variable pressures created when moving. Especially on a carby set up.

ahhhhh...great idea!

Looks like a pretty trick bit of gear..well done