I read the whole MotoIQ article, all the comments, and this entire thread.
As a consumer, it's hard to scream and yell about overseas manufacturing, when most of the large US Manufacturers have in fact moved their companies and manufacturing overseas.
This seems like a Government issue and how they handle trade agreements, and how our Government allowed our U.S. Corporations to move all their factories overseas. They don't pay any taxes to our Government (GE comes to mind, ZERO taxes, I guess they did not make any money....:rolleyes
, yet their products flood our markets while creating jobs in foreign countries.
I think I'd have to go back to school and re-take Economics 101-401 classes to even follow the trail of our jobs and manufacturing being all "out sourced."
Companies can charge a premium for their name-brand, and they should. However, charging 2-5 times as much for the product simply for their name on the product will lead consumers to look at alternatives.
I've got an SSAC header on my car, and will probably have a new SSAC header when I go VE. Buying a Hotshot seemed stupid then (price/performance), and it would be equally stupid now if Hotshot still existed. Their price was certainly NOT justified by their performance (performance includes reliability and materials used). Not even close.
Everything else on my Classic, far as I know, is all name-brand or Nissan OEM, and all of it is the very best I can buy. Including my Siebon CF hood and trunk.
I would never, repeat never, knowingly buy a straight-up counterfeit product. An outright blatant rip-off-copy like the "Cusco" fakes as in the MotoIQ article. No matter how they performed, that is a moral issue to me.
Shawn B