Originally posted by dsmithhfx The Cosina-Voigtlander m42-mount "Bessaflex" was the last all-mechanical SLR to be made, in 2003:
I think that Bessaflex qualifies as the last M42 mount camera to be introduced.
However, it is, under the skin, the same Cosina-derived chassis that was used in the Yashica FX-3 Super, Olympus OM-2000, Ricoh KR-5 Super II, and various Vivitar badged manual cameras etc. The Nikon FM-10 version was discontinued in just the last year or so, and may have been the last manual, mechanical, SLR in production (unless there's something being made in China somewhere most of us don't know about).
While the Cosina platform was fairly basic and low cost, it was versatile, and was adapted to all those mounts mentioned above. With the SLR mirror stripped out of the middle, it became the basis for the Voigtlander rangefinder cameras, and even the digital Epson R-D1 (I had one of those for awhile, and it was awesome fun).
Too bad you didn't snag one of those Bessaflexes when they were cheap enough. But I think I'd still rather have a nice clean, tight, Spotmatic F than three of those.