Even more frustrating is when American companies, founded by racers, innovators, inventors, and people whose passion was making better stuff, are bought up by equity firms and conglomerates and 1) get rid of smart people and engineers, and put R&D on the back burner 2) cut the number of parts and pieces produced because they were slow movers, eliminating parts important to niche markets, and 3) farm out production to overseas factories and entities, cutting QC and overall quality, and selling it for the same price.