We’ve been delving in the Multiskill archives and you’ll never guess what we found!

As well as these fantastic pictures of Derek as a young man in the early days of Multiskill, we spotted something very interesting on a high shelf….

Yes, tucked away at the back of a stockroom, we found a Sinclair C5! Do you remember them? The Sinclair has a fascinating history and and we thought it was definitely worth a blog post, so here we look at how the C5 came about and what happened to the company.

Sir Clive Sinclair (he was knighted in 1985) was a talented inventor and had always been fascinated by miniaturisation. He invented pocket radios, pocket TVs and the first slimline pocket calculator in 1972. He followed those successes with a series of affordable home computers in the early 1980s (the ZX81 was Britain’s biggest-selling home computer).

In January 1985, the Sinclair C5 electric tricycle was unveiled with great fanfare. This single-seater vehicle was billed as the future of transport and a viable alternative to the car. It had three wheels, a moulded plastic body with a single seat, and an electric motor that allowed the driver to sit back and enjoy the ride. Its battery could provide an 18 mile (30 kilometre) range, at speed of up to 15mph (25km/h). Steering was done with handlebars under the rider’s legs as they leaned back.

Sir Clive had a vision of less pollution and greater access to personal transportation for everyone. The first Sinclair C5 was priced at just £399 (about a tenth of the cost of an average car at the time). As it was an ‘electrically assisted pedal cycle’, no driving licence, road tax or helmet was required and it could be driven by anyone over the age of thirteen.

However, the C5 had an almost instant image problem and was seen as a frivolous and expensive toy by the British press and public. It also had safety problems. The driving position was extremely low, making it effectively invisible to other vehicles.

Battery life was not as extensive as promised. Many C5 owners reported burn-outs as the motor struggled to cope with any kind of hill. The vehicle would run aground over speed bumps, even small ones. Plus, there was no reverse gear.

Its lack of roof meant it was unsuitable for the British weather – the decision to launch the open-cockpit vehicle on a cold, wintry day in January was probably not a wise one.

Sir Clive was in many ways ahead of his time – his non-polluting vehicle was invented two decades before this became a priority of car manufacturers reacting to global warming.

However, the C5 was not a success. Of the 14,000 produced, only about 5,000 of them sold in the ten months before production ceased and the company went into receivership.

The Multiskill C5 was purchased by founder Derek as a promotional item for use at exhibitions and trade shows. It was regularly taken out by his children and was a common site on the roads around Multiskill’s Bradford HQ!

The C5 was a commercial failure which effectively ended Sir Clive’s business career. However the C5, like other infamous auto failures such as the DeLorean DMC-12 (made famous by Back to the Future), is today a cult classic among car enthusiasts. Now a covetable collectors item, a fully working C5 would set you back around £650 on eBay. Maybe we’d better get out the step ladders and try get the Multiskill C5 back on the road?