All the information I have came from Stant, friends at Ford, and some helpful guys at a local NAPA. I have never had one of your products in my hands, nor have I copied or referenced any of your work. The notion of putting lower-temp thermostats in cars is not new, and being a tinkerer, I figured I would take a stab at marrying two of them to see if I could find a fit. In all honesty, I realized that a MotoRad piece that has been on one of my shelves for two+ years was not going to be useful, so I finally decided to dabble with this in my own shop. Like so many other parts for cars like Mustangs, there are a lot of items out there that can be had from many different vendors, and this is no different.
In the 25+ years I've been working on cars, I've learned a few things as well, especially that thermostats are not complicated. After all, I'm not building a space shuttle in my garage - this is just something I played with that ultimately turned out just fine. I built one for my own Cobra, made a few more that I gave to friends, and when I realized the simplicity, I figured I could do some favors for guys that might save them a few dollars. I am aware that you had gotten involved in this several years ago and advertise on another forum, and I'm sure it is appreciated.
I'm pretty sure some of those parts you mentioned are/were actually the same stuff marketed under a different brand early on, some have split off and done their own thing. Most of these deals are done behind the scenes and everybody learns to play nice usually.
You're right... there is certainly nothing wrong with building a few parts and making some deals for people on the forums, in fact if anyone wants to learn how to build their own 170* thermostat I'd be happy to show them how, but through PMs of course. Clearly he has bigger plans than that though, putting up a website and expanding the line, basically copying our entire business model even down to similar pictures and selling points.
I found another post where he states the retail cost of our thermostats is ludicrous and that I do take offense to. Funny thing is he is selling them for right around the same cost we do, except we only sell wholesale.
I think if you had spent several years of your life building a business as I have you would have a different perspective. Certainly if anyone wants to take a chance and save a few bucks I can't blame them, it could be a very comparable product. But keep in mind we've been doing this for a long time and have learned a few things along the way.
My knowledge of your business plan or the relationship you have with your suppliers is nonexistent, and I have no intention of intruding. As I stated, if I kick a few of these out the door, what very little I gain from it will go to a good cause (I'm actually thinking St. Jude's, to make it specific). I highly doubt that spending a couple hours a month tinkering is going to upset the market in any way whatsoever with these. If I chose to advertise and come up with a few different versions, that is the free market, and again, something I came up with by doing my own research.
As for your "selling points", well, it is a thermostat, so what better way to illustrate how one performs against another by putting them in the medium they are meant for. I didn't come up with that one on my own, but it's just common sense. Hard data works every time, and as for pictures of a thermostat, a great way to advertise a thermostat is to just take a picture of said thermostat. That isn't really noteworthy, but for the sake of guys that have snatched some of these up, I felt the personal touch, rather than cobbling photo's from Stant, was a nice idea. Also, if my choice of the word "ludicrous" was offensive, then I'll gladly apologize and will be happy to make it a bit more palatable.