They were first introduced in 1963 by Aria (then known as Arai, or Arai Diamond) and they continued production of this model into the 70's. They were made by Matsumoku (who made nearly all the Arai and Aria guitars until going bust in the early 80's), and are very high quality builds. Not plywood. Most of them feature a two piece mahogany body which is very light weight due to the slim profile, the body is then veneered, and finished. They were sometimes marketed as Commodore, and I believer there was a Univox version as well. Sometimes you see them with the Univox style tremolo tailpiece, other times they have there own Jazzmaster-esque one. They also varied between having rocker switches (earlier) or a three-way toggle (later). I've seen them in Sunburst, Black (really good looking in black), Red, White, and a kind of Tobacco Burst (or just a poorly finished Sunburst?)
Short scale 23.6inch (!) mahogany neck on the these has a fairly typical Fender-esque profile. Not a baseball bat at all. Rosewood fretboard with a 12" radius. Tuners on these are the typical open back 6-inline vintage Japanese style tuners. Not great, but functional.
The roller bridge on these is a big improvement over the standard Jaguar or Jazzmaster bridge, and though I have some concerns over the viability of the hardened ceramic rollers, I have yet to see one where the roller is broken. Intonation is easily set, and though the individual saddles aren't height adjustable, the bridge is.
Pickups typically measure between 6.5k to 6.7k, and are single coils sat on top of ceramic magnets. The adjustable pole pieces run through the bobbin to a copper plate which sits ontop of the magnet and runs to a copper shielding plate. They are lacquer potted (as are most vintage Japanese pickups - word of advice, don't try and wax pot vintage Japanese pickups - the plastic bobbins have a tendency to melt) The slightly odd size of these pickup covers means it's hard to swap these out for other pickups that can be directly dropped in, however, there is a lot of room under the pickup cover (the coil doesn't come close to filling it) so swapping out pickups but maintaining the covers is a possibility, though you might have to fabricate a new top (just the black piece) to compensate for slightly different pole piece spacings. The originals are good sounding pickups. Nice and clean, very articulate and full sounding. Closer in sound to a Jazzmaster than a Jaguar.
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So, on to the restore. Have a picture of an original one, and then the project one side by side (note the kind of tobacco burst in the top versus the actual sunburst in the bottom), and then a picture of a concept for the project one. The project one is missing the bridge pickup and the neck pickup is dead. Will rewind (or swap!) the neck pickup, but finding a matching replacement bridge pickup would take time, so will put in something else. Have mocked up an idea, but still toying around with the best solution for this guitar.
Anyway, just thought I'd share. Sorry about the crap photography.
. Necks are great, you 'd think I'm exagerating but IMHO they have a MIJ feel to them, in any case up to par with any offset Squier. That plus the particular characteristics (24.75 scale, great sounding pickus I even think I won't swap) looks and price make it a winner for me