How embarrassing. Sinclair's next big thing in the 80's, the Sinclair C5, can be serviced alongside your vacuum cleaner (wonder if this service promise holds up for the jet powered version). Something tells us that nobody with any kind of marketing skills was involved in this ad. 'Hey, let's associate our funny shaped, dangerously slow electric vehicles with an appliance that sucks! Capital idea chaps, well done.' Maybe the ads weren't as misguided as we imagine, considering the C5 sold as many as 17,500 of the little death machines. Still, if the Daily Telegraph's take on the the C5 is to be believed, the tiny trike really did suck...
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 [RoSPA] to be a 'must'.
(Daily Telegraph, 11 January 1985.)
Wow, all that and a 15 mph top speed? Sign us up.