Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/14

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Subject: [Leica] The End of the M5
From: "Mike Durling" <durling@widomaker.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 21:45:25 -0500
 
I know several of you are pretty familiar with Leica history.  I am curious
about the 1975-77 period.  According to Steven Gandy's site M5 production
stopped in late 1974 or early 1975.  The M4-2 was started in production in
1977.

Did Leica intend to end rangefinder camera production for good after the
market failure of the M5 only to rethink the decision?  Can the gap be
explained by the backlog of M5s and the time it took to retool in Canada?
There were already M cameras made in Canada and apparently none were made
for most of 1975 and 76.

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on that period.

Mike Durling
KD4KWB
http://www.widomaker.com/~durling/