What you're looking at is the "Knee Action" suspension mechanism on a 1938 Chevy, also known as a Dubonnet suspension. If you're intrigued by mechanical oddities I will explain its history & how it works in subsequent tweets. #DavesCarIDService
Andre Dubonnet (playboy heir to the Dubonnet vermouth fortune) first developed this design for his Hispano-Suiza race car in the early 1930s. It was among the first independent front suspensions, but still uses a solid front axle to mount on.
Dubonnet sold the design to GM and it appeared primarily on Chevy and Pontiac passenger cars 1934-38. This cutaway shows the coil spring in the main cylinder, and those 2 little knobs are the dual action shock absorbers. It would flex each wheel like a knee, independently. 
Neat design, but difficult to maintain and prone to leak, so it ended up a 5 year experiment. All GM makes had IFS starting in 1934, but the more expensive makes (Cadillac, Buick, Olds) used the coil spring A-arm design of British GM engineer Maurice Olley.
This double A-arm suspension was much more reliable, and by 1939 all GM passenger cars used it. It's still the standard today. It gave GM a tech advantage over Ford, which stubbornly clung to their Model T tech, transverse "buggy spring" suspension until 1949.
Mopars also had dual A-arm coil spring IFS by 1939, but in 1957 went to parallel torsion bar springs. Unlike leaf or coil springs, the spring rebound came from twisting the torsion bar.
Old air-cooled VW also had a torsion bar independent front suspension, although mounted transversely.
This episode of Dave's Shop Class has been brought to you by Gojo
*Erratum: I mistakenly said the double A-arm is the standard today, and it kind of is for ladder frame vehicles. The most common though is McPherson strut suspension, especially for smaller front wheel drive cars.
