Introduced in 1973 and discontinued only three years later, rumor has it that this amazing beauty was a singular victim of its own success. This embodiment of the Leica M mount had such higher than expected sales, 65,000+ in under 3 years, that the "geniuses" at Leica/Leitz worried that it was siphoning off sales that might otherwise have shown up as regular M body sales. This should be recognized as the kind of marketing thinking that has influenced Leica actions over the decades that has led it from its once market dominating position to its current minor niche situation despite its many technological advantages.

According to Dennis Laney the Leica/Minolta annual production estimates for CL production are as follows:
1973-1974 35000 units
1974-1975 15000 units
1975-1976 15000 units

---

Total 65000 CL bodies

Defining features and aspects of the Leica CL comprise:

1. Leica's smallest and lightest M* mount camera even to this day
2. True 7 per cent central spot metering
3. Viewfinder visible shutter speeds and exposure offset meter needle
4. Removable body back for ease of film loading
5. Vertically traveling shutter with X-Sync at 1/60th
6. Purely mechanical (works despite dead battery) shutter speeds from 1/2 to 1/1000th plus B
7. Hot shoe but no PC connection
8. Bright line parallax corrected framelines for 40mm, 50mm, and 90mm Lenses. The non parallax corrected overall rectangular viewfinder frame roughly approximates the 35mm lens view.
9. The 40mm frameline is the default while the 50mm or 90mm lines appear as those lenses are mounted
10. Excellent brightness viewfinder/rangefinder
11. Shorter physical base (hence less precise) rangefinder focus system due to physical limitation posed by the camera body size
12. Vertical strap mounting eyelets
13. Extremely sharp lightweight available lenses
*Rangefinder only couples properly to certain lenses though other lenses will mount but not couple properly.