My Triumph 2500 Saloon has IRS and sliding spline half shafts. Apparently like many other things - Datsun took that design - and the same bolt patterns etc and came up with a ball bearing based sliding half-shaft design for the datto 1600 or something.

Japanese are brilliant for this. Its not overengineering, its called reengineering.
You take (steal) a design. And to get around copyright you alter it. But Nips don't just alter it, they make it 100% better. Bast$rds.

Best example I can think of is the rotary. Wait jsut a minute isn't it cale something like a Wankel Rotary enigne. Yes too right it is. Some Europe(or is it German) by the name of Wankel actually designed the engine pretty much on his own. It was good as a lead weight. & Nips from Mazda in Hiroshima (after a big H something hit it, trigger happy Americans) took the design and said we're going to build this engine, for the mass. Took em a while, nearly failed but they did succeed. The the americans fuc*ed up oil prices and Mazda and their thirsty rotaries near went under. Wonder how they would have gone if Fuel crisis didn't occur? Maybe fuel eficient rotarys. mmmm
Food for thought