Did the C5 sink Sinclair?

In June 1983, at the height of the Spectrum, the Queen's Birthday Honours list included among the new knights "Clive Marles Sinclair, Chairman, Sinclair Research Ltd." ^[1]. Clive Sinclair was the most famous British inventor of the moment, and he had a long-standing project: a personal electric vehicle.

The C5 was not made by Sinclair Research. In March 1983 a £12 million deal was struck, of which £8.3 million went to set up a new and separate company, Sinclair Vehicles ^[2]. The tricycle, with a chassis developed by Lotus and a 250 W motor, was assembled at the Hoover factory in Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales, reached 24 km/h and cost £399 ^[2].

The C5 belonged to another company, paid for with Clive's money, but the bill for the image went to Sinclair Research.

The launch, on 10 January 1985, went badly. It was held at Alexandra Palace, in London, in the depths of winter: the steep slopes and the snow in the park made the batteries overheat and fail ^[3]. In June Hoover sued Sinclair for more than £1.5 million owed, production stopped in August after about 14,000 C5s had been assembled, and Sinclair Vehicles went into receivership on 15 October 1985. The liquidators announced 4,500 sold and another 4,500 unsold; other sources give different figures ^[2].

Meanwhile, Sinclair Research had problems of its own. The Spectrum+, launched in October 1984, filled the shop shelves in time for Christmas, but sold less than expected, and in January orders, and with them revenue, plummeted ^[5]. On 28 May 1985 the company announced that it needed £10 to 15 million to restructure; Robert Maxwell announced in June that he would buy it, but the deal fell through in August ^[5].

The way out came from the computers themselves. In October 1985, Clive put together a rescue plan that satisfied the creditors, among them Thorn EMI, Timex, Barclays and AIB Electronics, and paid off most of the debts by Christmas thanks to a £10 million purchase of Spectrum+ machines by the Dixons chain ^[4].

The C5 weighed above all on the image. Sinclair User wrote in 1986 that the launch did Sir Clive's reputation no good at all and turned him, in the press, into a kind of "mad boffin" ^[4]. Added to the QL and the TV80 pocket television, the failure of the C5 made investors lose confidence in his judgement ^[5]. In April 1986, Sinclair Research sold the computers and the brand to Amstrad ^[5].