Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/01/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Bruce, the move to Villa Nova de Famalicao was serious many years ago (1973)- the majority of R4 production and two thirds (about) of the R5 production was carried out in Portugal. The assembly and QC/QA of R and M cameras resumed in Solms after the new factory was opened, a good deal of the parts for Leica cameras haven't been made by Leica for many years, certain assemblies are reputed (Leica are very secretive) to be made by Novoflex, there are even rumours that some parts are made by the ex arch-rival Zeiss. Electronic bits and pieces are bought in from all over the place. BTEW,Not often mentioned, the easy way to tell a Portugal R5 from a later, German, one, is that the Portugese models had a red Leica dot on the left and R5 on the right(seen from the front). These changed places when the production changed back to the new factory in Solms. Since then many sub-assemblies have been produced in Portugal and elsewhere. I always found it rather racist that many think that the Portugese workers (and some absolute idiots think the Canadians( too) were so much worse than German workers - the reason was that the clots in Wetzlar didn't do a good QA job on R4 electronic components in the first production run - the resulting unreliability was dropped firmly on Portugal. As far as I remember nobody in Germany ever took the blame for what ruined the reputation of Leicas from the non-German Leicas. Douglas bruce wrote: > I did specify "serious" > > B. > > On 7-jan-2006, at 19:15, Ted Grant wrote: > >> Bruce offered: >> >>> I think it's called PR ............ still, the serious move to >>> Portugal was begun some ........ seven or eight years ago, as far >>> as I learned from "insiders" at Solms.<<<<< >> >> >> Hi Bruce, >> Well insiders, outsiders and the world have known Portugal as a >> production plant for years. I believe LUG members have even had >> tours of the plant. So it doesn't take insider information to >> "reveal this." >> ted >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >