Fuji, KHS, Windsor, Mercier and other cloned bikes

From what I've understood Fuji (Classic) Track, Windsor The Hour and Motobecane Track are the same bike (at least the frame and fork). And that Mercier Kilo TT is a KHS Flite 100. And it seems there are a lot of aluminum frames looking like clones of each other.

Just wanted to know if there's a list of "originals" or main brands and their clones?

Most off the peg bikes, and even cheaper, branded frames are made by a factory in China. The company choose the frame they want out of a catalog, maybe ask the factory to tweek something slightly, then brand them as their own to sell to the masses.
Most of the aluminium and carbon frames, from various companies, on the market now are made in just a couple of factories.

Yes, I know it's Taiwan all the way, but some of the frames being sold for quite a lot of money seem to be available at a far better price somewhere else, under someone else's flag.

I am also wondering whether or not, for example Fuji, does the design work and others more or less steal what they have come up with? Buy the stuff from the same assembly lines using the same blueprints after client #1 has reached the limit of their production run?

Apparently the Brother frames are the same as BLB.

Giant makes more bikes than any other company, yet less than half of them will carry the Giant name. Most of them will be branded as whatever the companies name is that ordered them from Giant. There are also factories that only work on commission and don't have a brand of their own. There was an interesting article about where and by whom frames from different "manufacturers" are made on http://allanti.com/articles/where-was-my-bike-made-pg328.htm , but it seems to link to a non working facebook page now :/
Edit: Tiddy found the article, the link is 2 posts down

Planet X are very open about how it works. Most frames are made in Taiwan or China. There are three ways this can work:

1. You design in house, and pay for tooling, moulds etc, you have an exclusive agreement with the manufacturer and maintain the IP on your designs. This is what the big companies do.

2. You design in house, but tooling, moulds etc are subsidised by the manufacturer in return for being able to sell your frames unbranded. (it costs a lot to tool up to make a crabon frame) Generally this comes with a proviso, such as they aren't allowed to be sold by different brands in the same market. (This is generally what Planet X do for most of their frames)

3. A brand buys an "off the peg" design, and brands it as their own. The IP is owned by the manufacturer, and no one brand has ownership.

There are grey areas such as those chinarello frames, not sure whether they are simply unbranded knock offs, albeit it made in the same factories.

Also, here is that article. I found it and have posted it to ShortText.

http://shortText.com/gd7soP

"Haro owns the Masi brand"

there's something i never knew

Thanks for the article, tiddy!

its kind of the same for virtually everything. im a sole trader , i do skateboards and guitars. very similair thing. sometimes i can get a deck or guitar and just looking at the thing closely for a minute , you can just tell where its come from. i love geeking out.

google matsumoko guitars. ....... lovely gear. then theres paul schmitt. and jim thiebud.

Yeah, I read some stuff about how all skate gear (in my day it was Indy, Tracker, Vision, Santa Cruz yadda yadda...) is basically made by one company.

No surprises that there are very few factories mass-producing cycles... yes, your mum's BTwin mtb spaz shopper was made in the same place as your fancy schmancy plastic blob frame.

Remember the Surly Nice Rack?

despite Surly designing it themselves, Ragley also sell the exact same rack under their own name instead.