Launched in Britain on 10 January 1985, the Sinclair C5 was a three-wheeled personal transport battery electric vehicle invented by Sir Clive Sinclair. Relatively cheap to purchase (it sold for £399 + £29 for delivery), it quickly became an object of popular ridicule, and was a commercial disaster, with only around 17,000 being sold.

Sinclair had first started to think about electric vehicles as a teenager and it was an idea he toyed with over the coming decades. In the early 1970s Sinclair Radionics was working on the project. Sinclair considered that the problem would be best addressed by working on the electric motor and he had Chris Curry work on the problem. However, the company's focus shifted onto calculators and no further work was done on vehicles until the late 1970s. Development work began again in 1979 and progressed erratically until, in 1983, it became apparent that new legislation would alter the market considerably and make it possible to sell a vehicle very closely resembling their development efforts.

In March 1983, Sinclair sold some of his shares in Sinclair Research and raised £12-million to finance vehicle development. In May a new company, Sinclair Vehicles Ltd, was spun out of Sinclair Research and a development contract was entered into with Lotus to take the basic C5 design through to production. Around the same time, Hoover Ltd at Merthyr Tydfil entered into a contract to manufacture the C5. The engines were made by Polymotor in Italy, starting the urban legend that the C5 was powered by washing machine motors.^* In 1984 Sinclair Vehicles set up its head office at the University of Warwick Science Park. Despite a promotional campaign involving former formula one racing driver Stirling Moss, the immediate reaction after the launch was that the C5 was impractical in the British climate and possibly dangerous on busy roads. On 13 August 1985 Hoover stopped production. Fewer than 17,000 C5s were sold. Sinclair Vehicles was put into receivership on 12 October 1985.

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Is it just me or does this seem like a modern day Sinclair C5? http://bit.ly/1DooVQ
saffymorris (Saffy Morris) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:26 -0000
Is it just me or does this seem like a modern day Sinclair C5? http://bit.ly/1DooVQ
@nicolhay I think I saw one. I pondered getting one just to see how crap it was. It was the Sinclair C5 of handheld games.
newellhj (Newell Hampson-Jones) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:40:05 -0000
@nicolhay I think I saw one. I pondered getting one just to see how crap it was. It was the Sinclair C5 of handheld games.
Getting closer to the original one and only Sinclair C5 http://bit.ly/3UFv0N
clivesinclair (clive sinclair) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:03:49 -0000
Getting closer to the original one and only Sinclair C5 http://bit.ly/3UFv0N
Had Clive Sinclair launched his C5 now, he’d be ahead of the game. Here’s another one of those crazy ole ’lectric cars http://bit.ly/3UFv0N
hairydalek (Paul Dunning) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:37:05 -0000
Had Clive Sinclair launched his C5 now, he’d be ahead of the game. Here’s another one of those crazy ole ’lectric cars http://bit.ly/3UFv0N
@jonfildes What an ugly monster of a vehicle. Unless they do a massive design job on that, it'll be this decade's Sinclair C5. Hideous!
PS3Attitude (PS3Attitude) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:39:35 -0000
@jonfildes What an ugly monster of a vehicle. Unless they do a massive design job on that, it'll be this decade's Sinclair C5. Hideous!
F1 Shame. Does Mr Murray not remember the Sinclair C5, at least it looked better than his effort which is doomed. http://tiny.cc/Ga8KV
MrPennski (Pennski's HAL 9000) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:03:56 -0000
F1 Shame. Does Mr Murray not remember the Sinclair C5, at least it looked better than his effort which is doomed. http://tiny.cc/Ga8KV

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