I can tell you first hand that they copied Weber’s design.
After I retired and moved to Arizona I decided to get a part time job as I was getting a little bored. I went to work for Sears selling in Lawn and Garden and Tools. L&G is where the grills are. We were instructed if a customer was looking at a Weber to redirect them to the Sears’s models and point out the similarities and there were a lot of similarities and of course the price was significantly less than the Weber’s. We were told to tell the customer that the sears model was made in the USA which some of that was true except the part that said made in China on the back plate.
Every Weber I sold I had to explain to a manager why I wasn’t able to persuade the customer to buy a Sears grill.
I think the only reason they carried Weber was to use them as a comparison to show you get the same for less by buying a Sears grill.
Another interesting thing was out of all the Weber’s I sold not one ever came back. Just before I left the return rate on the Weber clones was right around 35%.
