Sinclair C5

Sinclair C5, tiny, electrically powered tricycle-like vehicle invented by Clive Sinclair in 1985. It was perhaps not the best of omens in 1985 that Sinclair chose a certain Barrie Wills as the managing director of Sinclair Vehicles. The new boss had been a senior manager at Belfast’s ill-fated DeLorean Motor Company, which went bankrupt in 1982 after a short but turbulent commercial life—a fate all too soon shared by Sinclair’s ten-month company.

Sinclair, a talented inventor and not-so-lucky entrepreneur, could have ended up as a billionaire, but he did not. Always fascinated by miniaturization, he invented the first slimline electronic pocket calculator in 1972 and followed that success with a series of affordable home computers in the early 1980s—the ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum. These futuristic devices should have been hugely successful, but they suffered from the chronic British disease of brilliant inventiveness coupled with poor commercial exploitation. But Sinclair’s Cambridge-based company was briefly profitable, and Sir Clive (he was knighted in 1985) again demonstrated technical foresight by forming Sinclair Vehicles to develop electric propulsion, two decades before this became a priority of car manufacturers reacting to global warming.

Sinclair had long been interested in this revolutionary technology and invested heavily—too heavily—in making his dream of an electric car come true. The resultant open-top Sinclair C5 was a pedal tricycle with plastic single-seater body and electric motor that allowed the driver to sit back and enjoy the ride. It was steered by means of handles and could reach the reckless speed of 24 kph (15 mph), though the advertising for the vehicle featured racing driver Stirling Moss and a modified model that reached 240 kph (150 mph), seizing the land-speed record for electric vehicles.

Its quirky design was inspired by new regulations that allowed the C5 to be driven on British roads without a license. But press and public alike ridiculed Sinclair’s snail-moving-like vehicle, claiming it was unsuitable for inclement British weather and sure to prove hazardous in traffic. Extras like weathershields for protection in bad weather and a “High-Vis Mast” (a reflector on a pole so the vehicle could be seen in traffic), along with its reasonable price tag (under £400), singularly failed to dampen criticism. Not helping the vehicle’s image was the decision to debut the open-cockpit vehicle on a cold, wintry day in January.

Of the some 14,000 produced, only about 5,000 of them sold in ten months before production ceased, making the C5 a catastrophic flop and failure that swallowed most of its creator’s fortune and effectively ended his business career. The car, like other infamous auto fiascos—such as the Edsel and the DeLorean DMC-12—is today a cult classic among car enthusiasts.