In my selection of usable bodies I have an Exakta V , 2 Exakta VX's and 2 Exakta VXIIa's. I have another marginally usable VXIIa (pinholes in shutter have been covered, but with a dry shutter, more can develop at any time). Several other bodies for parts. My current Exakta bag has both a VX and a VXIIa for shooters . I think the meter prism on the right Exakta is the neatest prism.  It has a built-in selenium cell meter and a viewfinder for normal lenses.  However, I usually shoot with a standard prism as the meter prism makes the camera a little top heavy and it has a tendency to want to hang upside down. In the 50's this was the top professional 35mm SLR camera with the largest selection of lenses and accessories.  Many Life Magazine photographers carried Exaktas to augment their Leicas.  Rangefinder cameras were the mainstay of pros in the 50's, but even then there were things only an SLR could do right, especially long telephoto lenses.  Also, for close-up work such as medical photography, Exakta made many specialized accessories to help them out.

At the right are 3 Meyer made lenses, 35mm, 135mm and 400mm. I'm not sure when preset lenses came about, probably around 1950.  Prior to that lenses had manual diaphrams - not even click stops.  Today our lenses close down for us immediately and stay closed only during exposure.  In those days you stopped down your own.  Manual you had to take the camera from your eye and check where you stopped it down to after focusing, or with practice, you could turn it about right by guess. You get pretty good at that - I had some presets I used to set at f22 and just turn to where I wanted. If the camera had a built-in meter, I turned til the needle centered and shot.  Click stops made it easier since you could count clicks to the aperture you wanted to use.  Preset was a big step and was used on lenses even into the 70's.  You set one ring to the aperture you wanted to stop down to.  The other ring turned free from wide open down to the pre-set aperture.  No counting clicks or guessing.  Turn to wide open for focusing, turn till it stopped at the pre-selected opening to shoot.  Even after the advent of automatic diaphram, they continued to provide less expensive lenses.  Also, long lenses were at first hard to make the long linkages needed and were the last to be available with auto diaphrams.

When I was a teen, I considered this to be the ultimate 35mm SLR when it was introduced.  Another year later Nikon would change the world of SLR's, but pros are slow to change until cameras are proven so the Exakta still reigned as king for a few more years.  At the time I liked  the convenience of a built-in meter and continuous viewing through the optical finder if needed.  I think the VXIIa still remains my favorite Exakta for appearance.  While I don't like the balance of the meter finder for shooting, it still looks beautiful. (I don't like the Nikon Photomic FTn for the same reason - the camera likes to carry upside down due to the extra weight and bulk on top of the camera).

I think it was this ad or one like it that first made me think of the Exakta as the Cadillac of 35mm SLR's.  The V in the ad set the tone for the Exakta as a special class in those days. I have seen some call it the Rolls Royce, but I differ on that. Rolls seems to call forth hand producing, limited supply and a greater exclusiveness - I always thought of the Alpa as being the Rolls Royce of SLRs. Exakta was a top of the line quality SLR, but more available, like a Caddy. 

As mentioned above, I think this is the most beautiful Exakta.  I think it is interesting that with all the lenses with fully automatic diaphrams available by this time, they still showed the classic 58mm f2 Biotar on the camera that required cocking the auto diaphram after each picture.  It is a very nice lens - I enjoy using it despite the inconvenience of having to keep cocking the diaphram.