I started thinking about what you wrote Matt.
On my camaro I have the old style Ringbrothers Hinge. It has the shock pointing downward. Also my early version has an adjustable link that tie the 2 arms together (they stopped doing that) . These were the only Hinge at the time of purchase. attachment 1.
I did a search here for when Fesler announced his hinge summer of 2007 this thread.
https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=10434
Looking at the pictures you can see that his hinge is more then a 10% difference. The base is different, his shock placement is different, the arms are different.
The weird thing is that now Ringbrothers changed the camaro hinge to a base and shock position that look more like the Fesler ones. attachment 2.
One reason why I can think of is cost of manufacturing. The base being smaller and the one arm being smaller.
Like I said before I have both the RB and Fesler stuff on my car. What you shouldn't do is call out someone for taking an idea when its happened the other way around also.
Billet parts is a hard business to get into and not have competitors run with your ideas. Look at the Billet motorcycle parts. Most of it is now made in China. It hasn't reached the pro-touring parts yet but it will. Ever walk the Asia market section at SEMA?
You need to market and brand yourself as the First, and having a more superior Quality than the competitors. Also to be successful you have to be first to market with new products. That way your selling as much as you can before the competition can make a similar product.
