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Lots of web sites erroneously credit the Auto-Reflex with being the first SLR with automatic exposure, but that's way off, because the first was the 1959 Royer Savoyflex Automatic from France. The Topcon Auto 100, with automatic through-the-lens (TTL) metering, was earlier, too. So one has to state the Auto-Reflex's claim precisely: It was the first focal-plane-shutter SLR with automatic exposure. Not TTL, though—there was a CdS cell on the front, as you can see on the photo above. (More on the exaggerated claims for the Auto-Reflex below.)

Note the shutter release that sticks way up. After you set the shutter speed with the round dial on front, surrounding the CdS cell, the shutter release has to close the diaphragm to the stop that the meter selected. Travel is smooth, but it takes a lot of pressure and it's a long trip.

Unlike its automatic-exposure predecessors, including the Topcon Auto 100, the Auto-Reflex was a solid, reliable camera aimed at serious photographers. Its focal-plane shutter allowed Konica to provide a wide choice of lenses, which they did. But superior TTL metering was already available in other cameras, and automatic exposure wasn't enough to make the Auto-Reflex a compelling choice. It was both advanced and obsolete from the day of its introduction.

The Auto-Reflex has a more unusual feature, though. It and the meterless Auto-Reflex P, which followed a year later, were the first and only SLRs that could shoot both full- and half-frame. A switch to the right of the pentaprism selects the format by adjusting the film advance, moving two baffles that crop the focal plane, and placing or removing two indicators in the viewfinder. You can switch at any point in the roll, making life difficult for film processors.

You can see the full/half switch and the shutter baffles in the photos below.

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Here's an article mostly about Auto-Reflex from the May 1966 issue of Popular Science:

(Rest of text, not about Auto-Reflex, omitted.)

There's a lot of information on Konica SLRs here, but this site seems to be the origin of the misinformation about the Auto-Reflex being the first automatic exposure SLR, so read with caution.

Or perhaps the misinformation started much earlier, with this ad that appeared in the November 1981 issue of Popular Photography, where Konica claims in the 3rd paragraph that they made the first fully automatic 35mm SLR in 1967, even though Topcon had already done it a few years earlier: