casm
Guest
Just floating an idea here - I have no intention of doing this myself, but thought I'd mention it to see where it goes.
Basically, those of us in the 'States are pretty well starved for aftermarket off-road upgrades. Springs, spacers, and skids is about what it comes down to - no bumpers, the locally-available spacers are all at the 1" mark presently, and there's a dearth of other stuff except for perhaps rally lights.
So, my question: have any of the fab shops in the US looked into licensing designs from companies outside of the US for US manufacture?
Since most of this stuff is likely being drawn up in a CAD/CAM package prior to manufcture, it'd essentially be a case of working out the agreement between the US and foreign manufacturers, having the CAD/CAM files emailed to the US, and building and selling the gear here. The US market gets stuff we can't now at prices we can actually afford to pay, and the foreign manufacturer gets a royalty on each unit sold here.
Just curious to know if this has been considered at all on this side of the world - it seems like there is something of an aftermarket there for making Subarus somewhat more trail-capable (granted, not as large as the Jeep / Big Three / Toyota / Nissan ones), but nobody's really tapped into it yet to see where it goes.
Basically, those of us in the 'States are pretty well starved for aftermarket off-road upgrades. Springs, spacers, and skids is about what it comes down to - no bumpers, the locally-available spacers are all at the 1" mark presently, and there's a dearth of other stuff except for perhaps rally lights.
So, my question: have any of the fab shops in the US looked into licensing designs from companies outside of the US for US manufacture?
Since most of this stuff is likely being drawn up in a CAD/CAM package prior to manufcture, it'd essentially be a case of working out the agreement between the US and foreign manufacturers, having the CAD/CAM files emailed to the US, and building and selling the gear here. The US market gets stuff we can't now at prices we can actually afford to pay, and the foreign manufacturer gets a royalty on each unit sold here.
Just curious to know if this has been considered at all on this side of the world - it seems like there is something of an aftermarket there for making Subarus somewhat more trail-capable (granted, not as large as the Jeep / Big Three / Toyota / Nissan ones), but nobody's really tapped into it yet to see where it goes.
