Jack, we live in a fairly small community as far the offerings for our cars, but that community being small is still worldwide. Some parts literaly travel the world to only get back to cusotmer to near where they were made to begin with, I seen this happen way too many times
Funny Story: I got a Brit friend in my car club, he's a good guy, we get along just fine. He was putting the finishing touches on his drop dead gorgous AH 100M, he did a great job on the car alot of hidden performance goodies. One night at a club meeting he brings this trick head gasket in for his 100M to show me, right off the bat I knew what is was, he tells me he got from a company in the UK and it was like $250 plus shipping, he was really proud of it
I then had to break the bad news to him, it was Cometic MLS head gakset made in CA. and I told him if he needed another one I could get him one for 89.95
Another example is the uprated rotor buttons and point sets that were made right here in the US, the person who had these uprated parts made offered them directly to a very large LBC parts vendor, they showed no interest, in the meantime he got a rather large order from a a company in the UK, who then turned around and sold a large quanity to the same vendor my friend had tried to sell them in the first place, at thier UK based operation, who then supplied the US location with the same parts. Point, those poor little rotor buttons and points sets had to travel across the big pond twice to get to you, kinda silly and guess who pays for that silliness, you got it
I've also seen folks buy ARP fastners from UK suppliers at way higher prices than they should be paying for a part made here to begin with, lots of goofey stuff like this happens in our hobby.