It is not a bastard anymore than the Savage Fox Model B guns are a bastard. The company made a lower grade gun and used the name from a higher grade gun to give it a little more appeal. I suspect this it the way they, Ithaca, saw to recover some of their investment they had from buying out the Lefever company. They never seemed to have made many, if any new Lefever guns from scratch, it looks like they just used up inventory of parts to assemble guns until they were all gone. Savage used the "Fox" name, on a lower grade gun in the 40's to give it more appeal later.
It is, what it is. A solid shooter in very nice condition. Not a mint gun or a extremely rare gun but a very nice gun. It is like finding a '62 Chevy Impala in nice condition. Not too many around, but it is still not a '62 Vette. The vette in this case would be a Ithaca NID in grade 4 or 5 in the same condition. But most vettes these days are being sold to old men, wanting to be young again, not young men without money. I suspect the same thing occurred back then when young men had little money and bought Nitro Specials because the Parkers, Smiths and Ithacas grade 5's were beyond their means.