The C5 saga chronicles the most depressing
failure of a Sinclair vision. Anticipated for
decades and developed over many years, Sir
Clive's electric-powered dream came and went in
ten short months. If tragedy comes in threes as
the old wives maintain, then the ill-fated trike
must be added to the flat screen and QL to
complete Sir Clive's trinity of disasters. Like
the television, the idea of producing some kind
of electric vehicle had been a constant
preoccupation for Sinclair since the beginning of
his commercial career. It's ironic that both
projects were destined to suffer much the same
ignominious fate. Although electric-vehicle
research was begun in earnest only at Sinclair
Research, company records suggest that in the
early seven ties Chris Curry half-heartedly
tinkered with the embryonic development of the
project for Radionics. Even at this stage it
seems the research was active rather than
theoretical, since Norman Hewett recalls spotting
an early prototype rotting away in the depths of
the St Ives Mill, although he stresses that the
NEB never had any interest in the product.
Indeed, even among Clive's most loyal supporters
one senses the desire to disown the fruits of
this particular vision. Everyone is at pains to
emphasise that the electric vehicle has always
been Sinclair's personal dream rather than any
kind of corporate endeavour.
Uncharacteristically, Sinclair seems to have
bowed to this consensus of doubt, and development
of the C5 was postponed until it could be backed
by his own burgeoning fortune.
Although Sinclair has always promoted the C5
as a 'completely new concept in personal
transportation', a cursory examination of
developments in the motor industry reveals that
such claims cannot be supported by history. While
the earliest development of a crude
battery-powered car can be traced to Thomas
Davenport's decidedly limited prototypes of 1834,
it wasn't until the beginning of this century
that commercial research and development began in
earnest.
According to The Complete Book of Electric
Vehicles, Shacket's definitive history of
the subject, 35 per cent of the vehicles sold in
1900 were powered by electricity. The market
peaked in 1912 when almost 34,000 electric cars
were registered. This figure takes into account
only vehicles used as 'personal transportation'.
(At this time, there was an even greater number
of commercial electric vehicles on the streets -
i.e. trucks, vans, taxis, etc.) However, as
petrol-powered technology advanced by leaps and
bounds, electric-powered vehicles sank into a
decline, their progress inhibited by the failure
of science to make any significant advances in
battery technology.
A century of evidence reveals that Britain,
more than any other industrial power, has
intermittently taken the principle of
electric-powered transportation seriously enough
to commit resources to investigating its
technical and commercial viability. As a
consequence, in the year Sinclair's modest
contribution was revealed to the world, this
country could boast 30,000 electric-powered
vehicles in commercial use (27,000 of which were
milk-floats), while similar developments in the
domestic market still awaited significant
technical innovations.
At the beginning of the 1970s, all the major
political parties recognised that there were
votes to be gained from a gestural support of a
broad spectrum of 'ecological issues'. To this
end, correspondingly gestural grants suddenly
became available to companies that could cobble
together proposals demonstrating the pursuit of
'ecologically sound' goals. The compelling
combination of an ideological fad and a crisis in
oil ensured that alternatives to the internal
combustion engine were, once again, an acceptable
subject for corporate speculation. But only just.
In the event, between 1971 and 1930 the state
invested less than £6m. in researching
non-pollutant forms of transport. Almost half of
the total allocation ended up in the hands of the
already heavily subsidised Lucas Aerospace. (To
date, the only tangible product of the Lucas
investment is the decidedly uninnovatory van used
for company deliveries.) The remaining subsidies
were wisely passed on to companies researching
methods of providing a reliable power source for
electric vehicles, an unsolved problem that
continues to constrain the commercial viability
of such products.
Early in 1980, Sinclair was beginning to feel
that he'd finally laid the spectre of the NEB and
was once again at the helm of his own operation.
The recently launched ZX80 looked set for
success, and the development of its successor was
well under way. While in lesser mortals such a
period might prompt a sense of cautious optimism,
the new decade found Sinclair in an expansive
frame of mind. The time seemed ripe to
re-evaluate the electric vehicle concept. To this
end, Radionics veteran Tony Rogers was hired on a
consultancy basis. It's worth stressing that at
this time Research was just beginning to grapple
with the supply and demand problems precipitated
by the success of the ZX80. If any form of
corporate plan existed, it would almost certainly
have been concerned with exploiting the company's
tangible success in a new line of consumer
electronics. There were neither the people nor
the financial resources to encourage dreams of
ambitious diversification. Unless you were Clive
Sinclair! Under the circumstances, it seems
certain that while the rest of the company
concerned itself with the demands of the early
home-micro enthusiasts, only Sinclair himself
felt confident enough about the future to indulge
in one of his obsessions.
To be fair, there is no reason to suspect that
in the early days the vehicle development would
have consumed much in the way of time or money.
The project was more of a diversion than a fully
fledged research programme. Rogers had a
full-time job running the Exeter Academy, and
considered his work for Sinclair as something
akin to a challenging hobby. According to
corporate biographer Rodney Dale, Sinclair's
brief to Rogers was sufficiently loose to
encourage inspired tinkering rather than a path
of rigorous research:
[Rogers was contracted to]
perform and present a preliminary
investigation into a personal electric
vehicle. The vehicle is assumed to carry one
person (with a possible second person only by
squeezing), and is seen as a replacement for
a moped and limited to urban use with a top
speed of 30 mph.
(The Sinclair Story,
p.152.)
It seems fair to assume that at the time Tony
Rogers was churning out early prototypes of the
vehicle, Sinclair was perfectly sincere in his
desire to create a revolutionary form of personal
transport. As a man for whom public acclaim
invariably takes precedence over monetary gain,
he would have relished the prospect of going down
in history as the inventor who took
carbon-dioxide pollution out of the twentieth
century. An authentic realisation of Sinclair's
transportation revolution would have offered
social salvation and commercial success.
Furthermore, his stubborn dedication to the
television project demonstrates that neither time
nor escalating research costs would be regarded
as significant obstacles to product realisation.
In the event, the stolid but relentless progress
of Clive the visionary was distracted by
legislative developments that awakened the reflex
opportunism of Clive the entrepreneur.
The motivation for accelerating the vehicle
development programme came in March 1980, when
the government abolished motor tax for all types
of electric transport. Overnight, Sinclair's
vision started to look like a viable marketing
proposition. Over the next eighteen months,
Rogers pushed ahead with the development of the
body design and motor, but according to his
biographer Sinclair took the decision to make do
with existing battery technology:
Part of the ground-up
approach was not to spend... enormous amounts
trying to develop a more efficient battery,
but to make use of the models already
available. Sinclair's very sound reasoning
was that a successful electric vehicle would
provide the necessary push to battery
manufacturers to pursue their own
developments in the fullness of time: for him
to sponsor this work would be a misplacement
of funds.
(ibid., p.154.)
As we have noted, the creation of a reliable
power source for electric vehicles is one of the
major obstacles impeding their commercial
development. The bottom-line quandary that
continues to plague battery-technology
development centres around petrol's privileged
relationship with energy. Petrol is valuable
because of its massive energy density. Or to put
the battery researcher's problem into
perspective, a kilogram of petrol offers an
energy potential of 13,000 watt-hours; the
lead-acid equivalent holds a miserable 50
watt-hours of energy. For the moment there
appears to be no contest.
The decision to leave the thorny problems of
battery research to others effectively turned the
vehicle project into little more than a marketing
exercise. By opting to base his design around
existing power supplies, Sinclair avoided
addressing problems the solutions to which
demanded genuine technical innovation. Having
abandoned any pretence of technological advance,
the only unanswered questions facing Sinclair
concerned public demand and economies of
production. Could the public be persuaded that it
needed a three-wheeled electric moped that came
on like an invalid car? Could such a product be
manufactured cheaply enough to be commercially
viable?
By the beginning of 1983, the development of
the Sinclair vehicle had reached the point where
serious investment was required if the product
was ever to reach the marketplace. However,
corporate support was conspicuous in its absence.
The phenomenal success of the ZX81 had finally
enabled a Sinclair company to make its presence
felt in the high street; there was every
indication that the Spectrum's imminent launch
would ensure a domination of the home-computer
market for the foreseeable future. Company and
consumer had developed a clear sense of corporate
identity; it was an image that centred on
low-cost home computers, and had absolutely
nothing to do with electric trikes.
Even Sinclair couldn't remain oblivious to his
colleagues' mounting anxiety as they watched
their mentor's challenging diversion rapidly move
towards a production-line reality. Although on a
one-to-one basis Sinclair could be chillingly
convincing about the project's potential, the
collective doubt of a normally uncritically
supportive staff persuaded him that there was no
point risking corporate stability unnecessarily.
As we have seen, in January 1983 Sinclair solved
his problem by selling off a small percentage of
his personal holdings in the company. At a time
when the value of Sinclair Research shares were
at their peak, this little deal provided him with
cash-in-hand to the tune of around £12m. March
saw the incorporation of a new company, Sinclair
Vehicles, whose activities would be financed by
an initial investment of £8.6m. of the revenue
from the share sale. Although we were unable to
trace any record of money changing hands
following the transfer of vehicle development to
Sinclair Vehicles, there can be little doubt that
the move would have been greeted with relief by
the doubting hordes at Research. From now on the
parent company could continue to consolidate its
success in splendid isolation, securely insulated
from the economic consequences of a shaky vision.
In March 1983, Sinclair managed to persuade
ex-De Lorean henchman Barrie Wills to take care
of the day-to-day running of Sinclair Vehicles.
Although the new managing director soon
discovered that he was overlord of a company
without a product, rumours of further legislative
modifications boded well for the future. The
company learned that 'electrically assisted pedal
cycles' were to be singled out for special
treatment under the law. Although owners of such
machines would be constrained by a 15 mph speed
limit, they would also be exempt from insurance,
road tax and a driving licence. Sinclair's
vehicle design was modified accordingly.
Making use of his industry contacts, Wills
ended up placing the contract for the final
stages of the C5's development with Lotus. Work
on the project was finalised towards the end of
1983, and the new few months were devoted to
refining the vehicle's bodywork, a task that was
tackled by industrial designer Guy Desbarats. As
far as the C5's battery and motor were concerned,
most of the development had been commissioned out
of house. The bulk of the modifications to the
battery had been accomplished by the combined
efforts of Sinclair Vehicles and Oldham. Since
Sinclair had decided that innovations in
power-supply technology should be funded by
battery manufacturers, one of the most critical
elements of any electric-vehicle design was
conspicuously neglected. The C5's power supply is
essentially a bog-standard (albeit lightweight)
lead-acid battery. Sinclair claims that suitable
modifications were incorporated into the design
to compensate for the effects of repeated
draining and recharging, but subsequent
developments cast doubts on the adequacy of this
work. The vehicle's motor was manufactured in
Italy by Polymotor, a subsidiary of Philips.
Sinclair's press release went to some lengths to
point out that the Italian company had developed
motors for 'gyros, torpedoes and fast-response
actuators'. What it didn't explain was that the
C5's motor belonged to the less glamorous end of
the Polymotor range. Sinclair's 'revolution in
personal transportation' would be driven by a
modified washing-machine motor.
With product development close to completion,
Sinclair turned his attention to finding a
production plant for his vehicle. For a while he
negotiated with De Lorean's liquidators in an
effort to buy the fallen tycoon's sophisticated
Northern Ireland plant. After a year of talks,
the plan was finally scrapped. In the meantime,
the company's twenty-five staff had found a home
for themselves in the Science Park, right next
door to Warwick University where much of the
early vehicle research was completed.
As a veteran of the development-grant circus,
it comes as no surprise that Sinclair had his
manufacturing problem solved by the Welsh
Development Agency (WDA). Acting on behalf of
Sinclair Vehicles, the agency persuaded Hoover
that the company's Merthyr Tydfil plant could
painlessly adapt its production line to handle
the demands of electric-trike manufacture. It
seems certain that both the WDA and Hoover
allowed themselves to be seduced by Sinclair's
wildly optimistic production projections of
200,000-300,000 units per year. For the Agency,
the project offered the promise of jobs in an
area crippled by unemployment; for Hoover, the
contract offered a significant revenue on a high
output and the prospect of more work in the
future as the vehicle range expanded. As the
project's principal subcontractor, Hoover would
be responsible for the bulk of C5 manufacture,
with only the bodywork assembly commissioned
elsewhere. (Because of the specialised equipment
required, the C5's pair of polypropylene
injection mouldings became the responsibility of
Linpac. According to the C5's technical
specifications, the vehicle's body was the
largest ever mass-produced polypropylene
assembly.)
By now, Sinclair's improbable coup with home
computers had made his name synonymous with
individual enterprise and national advance.
However dubious the vehicle project looked on
paper, with Clive Sinclair behind it there were
few bold enough to commit their doubts to print.
An unusually restrained Economist
feature (25 June 1983) offers a taste of the
pervasive mood of journalistic caution:
'If it was anyone but
Sinclair,' said one competitor, 'we'd say he
was bonkers.' But can a man who has made a
fortune out of calculators and computers, and
could double it on flatscreen televisions, be
that crazy?
As far as the Welsh workforce and management
were concerned, times were hard and there was
very little incentive to look a gift horse in the
mouth, however questionable its pedigree. The
contract was considered important enough for
Hoover to allocate a section of the Merthyr
Tydfil plant exclusively for the production of
the Sinclair vehicle. In addition, the company
invested £100,000 in a customised production
line for the project. By the end of 1984, the
first batch of C5s trundled out and began their
ill-fated quest for a non-existent market.
From a distance, the C5 resembles a giant
plastic clog. In spite of the vast amounts of
time and effort that went into the vehicle's
external design, at first glance its most
memorable characteristic is its size. The C5 is
small. Small, vulnerable and curiously
provisional. When confronted with a C5, one's
thoughts invariably turn to morbid meditations on
juggernauts. With overall dimensions of S feet 9
inches by 2 feet 5 inches by 2 feet 7 inches,
there was little chance that the C5 would make an
instant impression in traffic. In the critical
onslaught that followed the launch, the majority
of commentators voiced anxieties concerning the
wisdom of driving such a diminutive form of
transport in anything approaching heavy traffic:
In fact, I would not want
to drive a C5 in any traffic at all. My head
was on a level with the top of a juggernaut's
tyres, the exhaust fumes blasted into my
face. Even with the minuscule front and rear
lights on, I could not feel confident that a
lorry driver so high above the ground would
see me. Small wonder that one of the
accessories listed in the C5 brochure is a
high and bright-red reflecting mast, said by
the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Accidents to be a 'must'.
(Daily Telegraph,
11 January 1985.)
There were many who maintained that the
'Hi-Vis Mast' should have been included as a
standard feature.
Before moving on to the C5's launch and its
aftermath, it's worth mentioning that Sinclair
was not alone in his faith in the
electric-powered option. Ignored by all but the
specialist press, two companies were busily
completing the development of three more electric
vehicles, all of which were targeted for a 1985
launch. It should be stressed that none of the
neglected trio posed a threat to Sinclair's
plans, since all were directed way up market with
price tags to match their ambitions. However, in
spite of being considerably more expensive than
the Sinclair creation, none of the C5's
competitors boasted much in the way of
technological advances. Like Sinclair, both the
companies concerned had opted to design around
the limitations of existing technology.
The electric-powered Whisper is an
unremarkable-looking hatchback. Designed and
marketed by a Dutch company called Whisper
Electric Cars, the vehicle costs around £4000
and was launched in August 1985. At a cruising
speed of 30 mph, the Whisper travels 50 miles
before requiring a recharge. The other company
involved in electric-vehicle development is the
all-British HIL Electric. Like the Whisper, both
the QT pick-up van and the U36 bubble car boast
exteriors based around standard motor industry
designs. To date (July 1986) none of these
electric alternatives can be said to have made
much of an impression on the market.
The launch of the C5 electric vehicle was
expensive, glossy and mildly embarrassing. Like
the majority of products from the Sinclair
stable, the C5 was initially announced as being
sold on an exclusively mail-order basis. However,
this didn't mean that Sir Clive planned a
low-profile launch for his new baby. According to
official statistics, Sinclair Vehicles sank £3m.
into a three-month Primary Contact promotion. The
campaign included television slots and colour
supplement spreads and seemed to be directed at
anyone who would listen:
Targeted broadly at the
family audience, Sinclair believes that the
C5 will appeal equally to the younger
generation ... and adults for activities such
as urban commuting, shopping and getting to
the railway station.
(Sinclair Vehicles, press
release, 10 January 1985.)
At first glance, the extravagant brochure
promoting the new product appeared to offer the
customary hallmarks of a standard Sinclair hype.
However, behind the high-gloss pics lurked an
undercurrent of desperation. Rather than promote
the C5 as the future of urban transportation, the
static tableaux of businessmen, housewives and
their indispensable C5s served to accentuate the
redundancy of the product. Apart from anything
else, it was quite obvious that none of the
featured models would be seen dead driving the
contraption they were attempting to market. The
accompanying text was slightly more convincing.
Adopting a shamelessly heroic stance, it
portrayed Sir Clive as a technologically enhanced
David, fearlessly taming the giants of urban
chaos:
Sinclair's reputation is
built on cutting giants down to size, turning
impersonal tyrants into personal servants.
Sinclair took a desktop calculator and put it
in your pocket ... took the big-business
computer and tucked it into your living room
... took the television set and made it
smaller than a paperback. Now, with the C5,
Sinclair Vehicles puts personal, private
transportation back where it belongs - in the
hands of the individual.
('Sinclair C5 - A New
Power in Personal Transport'.)
Extending a familiar theme of Sinclair
promotions to something close to breaking point,
the blurb struggled to imply that the purchase of
a C5 spelt liberation from the multinationals and
a blow for the humanisation of the urban
landscape. To their credit, there are moments
when the admen came perilously close to making a
turkey look like a dove. But for once reality
defeated commercial intent. In spite of the
first-class photography and expensive design, the
C5 still looked like an exiled pedal car from the
children's section of a mail-order catalogue. In
spite of the blue-print style diagrams, Sir
Clive's dream machine manifested all the hi-tech
innovation one would expect from a three-wheeled
electric moped wrapped in injection-moulded
polypropylene. In spite of the brochure's
depiction of a blue-sky suburbia exclusively
populated by electric trikes and their drivers,
readers continued to speculate on the carnage
resulting from C5-omnibus interaction.
The official launch of the C5 at Alexandra
Palace was an unqualified disaster. Ever
unpredictable, Sir Clive had astounded his public
by launching his open-topped, low-performance
trike in the middle of winter. The first (and
last) product from Sinclair Vehicles was unveiled
on 10 January 1985 and priced at £399. In his
opening speech, Sir Clive confirmed suspicions
that, rather than make any serious attempt at
technological advance, Sinclair Vehicles had
chosen to rush out the C5 in the hope of
capitalising on the new electric-vehicle
legislation. In any event, the reality that was
the C5 fell well short of the promise of Sir
Clive's vision, and at times his obligatory
launch euphoria sounded dangerously apologetic:
I'm going to start in a
rather unusual fashion by telling you what
we're not announcing today ... we're not
announcing a conventional car. Sinclair
Vehicles is dedicated to the development and
production of a full range of electric cars,
but today we have an electric vehicle, the
first stage on the road to an electric car.
(The Sinclair Story,
p.164.)
Although desperate hacks did their best to
evoke the shock-horror vision of packs of
14-year-olds terrorising the neighbourhood in
their customised C5s, it was clear that the
launch offered little mileage for the tabloids.
For the rest of the press, close encounters with
the trike provided the long-a waited opportunity
to voice doubts about the commercial viability of
Sinclair's vehicle project. Appallingly negligent
organisation at the launch did much to ensure
that journalists' negative preconceptions were
soon confirmed by experience. It turned out that
for one reason or another a large number of the
demonstration machines simply didn't work! What
possible excuse can there be for inviting the
press to assess the reliability of your product
and then providing them with defective machines?
A little ahead of schedule, Sir Clive's new
company took on the commercial scars that are the
hallmark of a depressingly enduring Sinclair
tradition.
Critical evaluation of the C5 arrived in three
main waves, and little of it did anything to
encourage sales. Even before the official launch
the trike was under attack from the British
Safety Council (BSC). It seems that on 6 January
1985 the Council's James Tye accepted Sir Clive's
invitation to test-drive the new product at
Vehicle's Science Park headquarters. After due
consideration, the vociferous Mr Tye made it
clear that he didn't like what he saw. He was
particularly concerned about the prospective
mobilisation of unlicensed, uninsured
14-year-olds; teenagers and C5s was not a
combination the Council relished. Two days before
the launch, the BSC issued a decidedly negative
report on the trike, which was dispatched to its
32,000 members. The following day, Sir Clive
announced his intention to sue both the BSC and
Tye for their 'defamatory remarks' about his
project. Although nothing came of the threat,
Sinclair remains bitter about Tye's opposition to
the C5 and the amount of media attention given
over to the BSC's views:
The C5 got a very bad
press. There's an outfit called the British
Safety Council who sound like a government
agency ....... go round bad-mouthing other
people's products, as far as I can make
out... The interesting thing was that the
ROSPA [Royal Society for the Prevention of
Accidents], who are the real authorities on
safety, thought the C5 was absolutely super.
They were very supportive because they
thought it was a great improvement on the
bicycle and motorbikes, so were very keen to
see it succeed. But the press, of course,
listened to the vocal James [Tye].
(Interview, 6 November
1985.)
In the wake of the fateful launch, intrepid
motoring and technology correspondents filed
their anecdotes and voiced their doubts. All In
all the critical response was firmly negative.
The following extract is fairly representative of
the general tone of the next-day impressions:
The instructions were quite
simple: sit in, switch on and go. And go the
Sinclair C5 vehicle ... certainly did. For
seven minutes. Then the first battery ran
flat. Fortunately, I was not stuck in the
middle of a city rush-hour nor on an isolated
country road ... I pedalled the C5 back to
the service point (my legs are still aching
even though the slopes were gentle) and the
spare battery was connected ... But nothing
could compensate for the sheer feeling of
vulnerability in spite of Sinclair's claim
that it is far safer than anything on two
wheels. The electrically powered car might be
the personal transport of the future, but if
the C5 is anything to go by, then that day
has not yet dawned.
(Daily Telegraph,
11 January 1985.)
Overall, the gentlemen of the press seemed to
suspect that the C5's hardware simply wasn't up
to the task of realising the manufacturer's
already rather limited performance claims with
any measure of reliability:
The 250 watt electric motor
which drives one of the back wheels proved
incapable of powering the C5 up even the
gentlest slopes without using pedal power.
The tricycle soon started making a plaintive
'peep, peep' noise, signalling that the
engine had overheated ... The C5 is
compromised by the need to sneak in under the
quaintly named Electrically Assisted Pedal
Cycle Regulations 1983. This lays down a
maximum power of 250 watts for the engine
which gives the C5 a top speed of 15 mph on
the level less than most cyclists would
manage.
(Your Computer,
February 1985.)
If the newspapers cast doubts about the
viability of the Sinclair enterprise, then the
measured assessments of the C5 by consumer and
motoring agencies must take the credit for
planting the kiss of death. For example, the
Automobile Association (AA) was in no doubt that
many of Sinclair Vehicles' claims for the C5 were
contradicted by the results of the Association's
own tests.
The first of Sinclair's claims to be called
into question was the 'up to 20 miles' range
(determined by the life of the battery) referred
to in the advertising campaigns:
Tests on the AA's normal
suburban fuel-evaluation course gave a
'typical' range of ten miles, about half that
claimed by the makers. On a cold day, in poor
conditions, the battery ran flat after 6.5
miles.
(Daily Telegraph,
2 May 1985.)
Confirming Your Computer's suspicion
that the C5's motor simply wasn't powerful enough
to drive the vehicle under anything but the most
favourable conditions, the Association recorded a
maximum running speed of 12.5 mph (against the 15
mph claimed by Sinclair Vehicles). The AA's
report had this to say about the C5's running
costs:
Running costs for the C5
over a year would workout at £19.17 on
off-peak electricity or £21.77 at standard
rates, allowing partly for eventual battery
replacement. This compared with £19.25 for a
£390 Honda PXSO moped, against which it was
compared. The moped had a maximum range of
150 miles on a tankful of fuel, with an
average consumption of 170 mpg and a maximum
speed of more than 30 mph.
(ibid.)
In consideration of the C5's overall
performance, the Association drew the following
conclusions:
The C5 looks more
comfortable and convenient than it really is
- older cyclists looking for less pedal
effort will be disappointed by the agility
its layout demands. Although it is
delightfully quiet, performance, range and
comfort do not compare with the better mopeds
and costs are much closer than one might
think when one allows for the inevitable
battery replacement.
(ibid.)
At the top of a sizeable list calling into
question the C5's stability and general
roadworthiness, the A A, like virtually everyone
who came into contact with the machine, expressed
concern about the visibility of C5 drivers at
large. Once again it was suggested that the
'Hi-Vis Mast' be incorporated as a standard
feature. No one at Sinclair Vehicles seemed
particularly keen to respond to the AA report:
A spokesman for Sinclair
Vehicles said, 'It would seem fruitless to
argue in any detail with an organisation like
the AA, but on the question of running costs
compared with a moped, they are not comparing
like with like.'
(ibid.)
If the results of the AA's test amplified
public doubts about the C5, the review of the
vehicle in the consumer magazine Which?
effectively dug a grave for the project. Since
the Which? report (June 1985) is
essentially an amalgamation of most of the
criticisms of the C5 that we have already noted,
we'll simply list some of the survey's somewhat
cryptic summary as an indication of the areas of
concern:
How far? A lot less than
claimed.
How fast? Hard to keep up with traffic.
Handling and braking? Adequate.
How safe? Not very good.
How manoeuvrable? Disappointing.
How secure? Too easy to steal.
How reliable? Not promising.
Our verdict: of limited use in its present
form; poor value for money.
But enough from the professionals who get paid
to complain. How was the real world responding to
the arrival of the C5? In the light of the
initial mail-order-only policy, the only place
that Joe Public was likely to come across a C5
was in the local electricity showrooms which
displayed the vehicle for a couple of months
after the launch. With such limited exposure,
it's unlikely that the C5's launch was noticed by
many outside the sizeable but hardly
representative network of Sinclair supporters.
In the absence of reliable statistics, it's
difficult to assess the initial response to the
mail-order promotion. Four weeks after the launch
the company was celebrating the sale of a modest
1000 units (remember, Hoover were geared up to
produce 200,000 C5s in the first year), and one
month later Barrie Wills was claiming that there
were 5000 C5s on the road. In addition, Sinclair
Vehicles had doubled its sales staff and was
struggling to process around 200,000 information
requests about the C5. So all was well. Or was
it? Was there anything to be concluded from the
discreet announcement that plans for an expansion
of the vehicle production line had been
temporarily 'postponed'?
In February 1985, a reporter from The
Times succeeded where we failed by
unearthing some of the early buyers of Sir
Clive's transportation revolution. How did it
feel to be the first on your block to own a C5?
Take 48-year-old businessman Roger Wilding:
Most of us hope that
electric vehicles will take over one day
because they are cheaper, quieter and
pollution-free. Sinclair seemed to be taking
a big step towards achieving this and I felt
it was important to support him. However, I
thought the C5 would be more sophisticated
and, although the design is very clever and
it performs surprisingly well, the technology
is not very innovative. I'm a little
disappointed and am thinking of selling.'
(5 February 1985.)
Or disabled pensioner Dick German:
'I was very excited when it
first arrived, but the first time I tried it
out it would just not go up a hill and I had
to come home. I then got my stepson to have a
go and he didn't get much further, so I have
sent it back.'
(ibid.)
Apparently unaffected by the portents of
impending doom, Sir Clive felt inspired to
announce a new product. Scattering investment
projections of around the £l00m. mark, he
anticipated that by 1990 Sinclair Vehicles would
be marketing the C15, an electric powered
four-seater car capable of speeds of up to 80
mph. Dismissing the possibility of using a
combination of electric and petrol/diesel power,
he explained that his design would be based
around innovations in battery technology. One
suspects that Sir Clive's compelling dreams were
relying on the principles of innovation as an act
of will. Certainly he offered no indication of
the kind of approach he would employ in his
solution of one of the century's most elusive
technological problems. However, he was clear
about the shape of the new vehicle and the kind
of wheels he might use:
The car has a futuristic
design with an elongated 'tear-drop' shape, a
lightweight body made of self-coloured
polypropylene and a single, possibly 'roller'
type rear wheel.
(The Times, 3
February 1985.)
Back in the real world, by March 1985 it was
clear that Sinclair and Wills were becoming
anxious about the public's sluggish response to
an extremely expensive promotion. There was a
serious danger that the C5 would be lost in a sea
of indifference. Sir Clive's inspired solution to
the problem was to hire teams of unemployed
teenagers to ride C5s around the capital
promoting public awareness of the product. The
campaign was later extended to Birmingham and
Leeds. The experiment got the C5 noticed, but
there's little evidence that it boosted sales.
From 1 March, the C5 started to be sold in the
high street through the Woolworth and Comet
chainstores, with the latter buying in a launch
stock of 1600 units. Nine months later, both
companies were stuck with the bulk of their
original orders, and slashed the C5's price by 65
per cent in an effort to move the product.
To make a bad situation worse, Sinclair had
received numerous complaints that the C5's
performance was impaired by the plastic moulding
attached to the gearbox. The decision was taken
to halt production for three weeks so that the
problem could be sorted out. The 100 Hoover
workers concerned with C5 production were shifted
to replacing the plastic moulding on the vehicles
currently in stock.
From this point on, it was downhill all the
way for the C5. As the least of his problems, the
Advertising Standards Authority surfaced in April
to announce that it would uphold complaints that
called into question launch promotion claims for
the C5. It seems that the Authority considered
the most contentious claim to be that the trike
was 'far safer than anything on two wheels'. It's
certainly true that there was absolutely no
evidence to support the assertion. In the same
month, production recommenced in Merthyr Tydfil,
but demand for the C5 had ground to a virtual
standstill so it was hardly worth the effort.
Production was cut by 95 per cent and Hoover
churned out a mere 100 C5s a week.
When in May the project's production
controller was made redundant, Sinclair was
forced to confess that, at 6000, unsold stocks
were twice previously disclosed levels. In a
desperate bid to drum up business, Sir Clive
announced his intention to 'seek export markets,
particularly in Holland'. A few days later, the
Dutch National Transport Service ruled that the
C5 was not suitable for Dutch roads in its
present form. According to the NTS, the C5's
braking system needed to be improved, more
reflectors were required and the 'Hi-Vis Mast'
would have to become a standard fixture. Much the
same requirements were demanded by most of the
ten countries in which Sir Clive intended
launching the C5, so he had no choice but to
comply.
As we have seen, throughout 1985 Sinclair
Research was mirroring Vehicle's disastrous
trajectory, and by June the company was looking
to Robert Maxwell to bail it out. During this
period, negotiations with Maxwell along with the
search for alternative solutions to the Research
crisis meant that the computer company claimed
both Sir Clive's time and his attention. Apart
from his half-heartedly exploring the export
potential for the C5 in the States and the Far
East (approaching primarily leisure resort chains
and hiring outfits), it seemed that any decision
concerning the fate of Sinclair Vehicles would
have to await the resolution of more pressing
concerns. Then it was leaked that the company was
up for sale and that Sir Clive was already
talking with prospective clients. It seems that
Sinclair had decided to rid himself of a
millstone that required more attention than he
had time on his hands.
It was presumably news of the sale and the
frustration of being pushed to the back of Sir
Clive's concerns that prompted Hoover to draw up
a writ announcing its intention to sue him
personally to the tune of £1.Sm. By the second
week in July when Hoover made its surprise move,
Sir Clive's plans to sell Sinclair Vehicles had
collapsed when he turned down an offer of £2.7m.
for the company. In what was presumably an
attempt to spur him into action, Hoover was
pressing for the full £1,525,000 in respect of
C5 production from November 1984 to date, and an
additional £32,720 interest. In the end, the
company never served its writ. Temporarily
pacified by personal guarantees from Sir Clive,
Hoover was seduced into accepting negotiation.
The company even agreed to set ten of its workers
to the modification of C5 stock for sale in
Europe. However, by the second week in August
Hoover decided that it had demonstrated more than
enough restraint, and publicly announced that it
was stopping all work on the C5:
We have run out of several
key parts and do not wish to plan for any
further inventories until our differences
with Sir Clive are resolved.
(Guardian, 13
August 1985.)
Out in the high street, Sir Clive's declining
fortunes were reflected in the fall in shelf
value of his companies' products. Stores
discounted Sinclair goods in the hope of pruning
stock before the seemingly inevitable liquidation
turned it into throwaway sale fodder. In some of
the larger stores, a C5 along with a complete set
of accessories could be picked up for £139.99!
On 15 October 1985, Sir Clive finally got
around to making the announcement everyone had
been expecting. Sinclair Vehicles had officially
been placed in the hands of the receiver on
Friday, 12 October. It fell to London accountants
Begpie, Pickering and Co. to untangle the
£700,000 worth of debts owed to 110 suppliers.
In the month before the receivers were appointed
Sinclair Vehicles was renamed TPD Limited. On the
date the receivership of TPD was announced, it
was also stated that Sinclair Vehicle Sales
Limited held the C5 stock and according to the
Guardian was involved in continuing research. The
message appeared to be that in seizing the
receivership option, Sir Clive had secured
vehicle development rather than throwing it to
the wolves of the City:
The company [TPD Ltd] said
yesterday that research on two new electric
cars was well ahead. Sir Clive had been
advised to call in the receivers 'to ensure
the future of the electric vehicle venture
and its research activities'.
(Guardian, 15
October 1985.)
There seems little point in speculating about
how the original Sinclair Vehicle debt to Hoover
of £1.5m. failed to make the transition to TPD's
accounting. Hoover refuses to comment on the
affair, and Sinclair simply confirms rather coyly
that the 'issue has been resolved'. Although
Hoover is presumably satisfied by whatever
settlement finally resolved its problems with
Sinclair, one doubts whether the same can be said
of the vehicle's production-line workers.
When TPD finally crawled into voluntary
liquidation on 4 November 1985, there was an
opportunity to assess the cost of Sir Clive's
ten-month support of a loss leader. At the
shareholders' meeting at which he announced his
decision to liquidate, it was revealed that in
addition to Sinclair's original investment of
£8.6m. (of the £12m. earned from his sale of
Research shares), he had also pumped in a further
£5.9m. of his own capital. This second stage of
Sir Clive's investment was passed to the company
in the form of a loan secured by debenture. In
other words, although the original investment was
gone for good, the £5.9m. would be recovered.
According to the results of the shareholders'
meeting, there were 4500 unsold C5s in TPD's
hands as the company was liquidated, and the
company's total deficit appeared to be around
£6.4m. So what has Sir Clive's £8.6m loss
bought him in the way of experience? Well,
although he could hardly be described as eating
humble pie, the arrival of the liquidator
invariably inspires gestures of penance, which in
Sinclair's case amounted to the recognition of
undeniable errors of judgement. He certainly
conceded that there is no room for a partially
developed electric vehicle like the C5, and today
insists that future developments will tackle the
fundamental problems of battery innovation. By
rushing ahead half-cocked in an effort to exploit
a loophole in EEC regulations, Sinclair has set
himself the additional hurdle of repairing his
tattered credibility before he can even begin to
consider marketing related products. According to
the Financial Times, Sir Clive has also come
round to the position where he might admit that
it would have been more prudent to launch his
open-topped trike in the spring rather than the
winter!
Under more favourable circumstances, the C5
débâcle would have been of little consequence.
A rich man's folly. However, alongside the
failures of both the QL and the flat screen and
coupled with the crisis at Research, the
conspicuous collapse of Sinclair Vehicles did
much to confirm institutional suspicions that Sir
Clive was a bad risk. What could be worse at a
time when Sinclair needed investment more
urgently than at any other period in his
commercial life?
One might have hoped that with the failure of
both the flat-screen television and the C5, Sir
Clive would have finally driven his long-term
obsessions from his system. Not a chance! When we
interviewed him the day after the TPD liquidation
announcement, Sinclair was bullish in his
determination to press on with vehicle
development. Presumably building on research now
in the hands of Sinclair Vehicles (Sales), Sir
Clive intends a return to the pursuit of his
original vision. In some shape or form, finance
permitting we can expect the arrival of an
enclosed two-seater C5 marketed as the C10, and a
deluxe, four-seater 'teardrop-on-rollers',
otherwise known as the C15.
One can only pray that Sir Clive will shelve
his plans to develop a personal, vertical-takeoff
aircraft!
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