1982 - the beginning of the end for Yashica and Contax?

I was going through a series of notes that I found yesterday which I had written when I was a guest of Yashica at Photokina 1982 and they got me thinking.

Conventional wisdom has blamed the demise of the Contax/Yashica brands on the exorbitant cost of developing the N-Digital and the 645, along with creating a legion of disgruntled owners of C/Y lenses because of the introduction of the new N-series mount.  Like most, I had accepted this line but my notes have caused me to rethink this.

1982 saw a number of big moves by Contax and Yashica (not yet owned by Kyocera), principally the introduction of the RTSII and the FX-A; both cameras were to be the flagships for their respective brands.  As we know, the RTSII proved successful but the FX-A became an evolutionary dead end for reasons that have never been fully explained.  The fact that the FX-A was never released in Japan must have had a lot to do with its swift demise - perhaps there was a patent issue in Japan concerning the hybrid focusing system...does anyone out there know the reason?  Whatever the truth, the loss of Yashica's home market for the camera was its death knell and it's been estimated that about 1000 were manufactured.

But what may have been the greatest opportunity for the Contax/Yashica brand was squandered because of objections by Zeiss in the face of Yashica's giving the green light for the system; who here remembers the Contax AF 137?  This was in essence a 137MD with an extra series of motors and gears tucked into a grip on the front of the camera that powered the focusing mechanism of the Zeiss lens and synchronised it with the internal motor drive that advanced the film.  Although I have seen references to the prototype being paired with a Zeiss AF 50 1.4, I saw a hybrid AF 50 1.7 Planar with a manual focusing ring and what looked like a couple of rocker switches on the body of the lens.  This would have been the world's first fully automated AF camera system that linked an AF mechanism with an internal motor-driven film advance.  It would have revolutionised 35mm SLR photography in 1982 and according to my notes, the existing range of C/Y lenses could still be used in manual mode. 

Zeiss' objections, despite the appearance of their prototype AF 50mm Planar, was that the lightweight body needed to enable the motors to drive the AF mechanism would have required the extensive use of plastics and the tightness of the tolerances would have been insufficient to maintain the optical precision associated with their lenses.  Yashica was of a different opinion - odd then that they did not pursue the option to produce their own version using hybrid ML lenses - or was that part of the reason for the sudden withdrawal of the FX-A?  Perhaps Yashica had decided to explore the AF option running solo but by then, Kyocera was already knocking on the door and within the year had taken over Yashica and the Contax brands.  With the vehement objections of Zeiss on the table, the entire opportunity was abandoned and the technology was instead developed by Minolta and the Contax AF became the Minolta Maxxum 7000 a couple of years later.

The only image I've been able to find of the Contax AF can be found in the superb reference book by Hans-Jurgen Kuc: On the Trail of the Contax Vol. II Photo11.9, p210.  If I can find a photo that is not subject to copyright issues, I'll add it to this thread.

Ah, what might have been....   Of course, this is only my opinion but those notes got me thinking.  By the time Zeiss came round to producing AF, the market was already saturated by the bigger brands and the relative minnow that was Kyocera could not generate sufficient demand to allow it to develop economies of scale that could generate profit.  The opportunity may not have been lost with the development of the N-Digital; that may have been the final nail in the coffin but the real prize may have been thrown away 20 years earlier!  Oh well, just a thought....