Sinclair Zike maximum speed of the bicycle operating under its own power was kept below 15 miles per hour to prevent it being classified as a motorcycle under UK law. The Sinclair Zike was developed by Sir Clive Sinclair following the commercial failure of the Sinclair C5 in 1985. Electric vehicles were one of his long-term research ambitions. The Zike was financed largely with his own money, and the manufacture was subcontracted to Tudor Webasto, a Birmingham-based company. The Zike was launched on 5 March 1992 at the Cyclex exhibition in Olympia, London, when a prototype was demonstrated to both press and
Sinclair C5 selling some of his own shares in Sinclair Research to fund a separate company that would focus on electric vehicles. A £12 million deal was reached in March 1983, of which £8.3 million was used to fund the establishment of the new Sinclair Vehicles company. Sinclair recruited Barrie Wills, a veteran former employee of the DeLorean Motor Company, to lead Sinclair Vehicles as its managing director. Although Wills initially expressed scepticism about the viability of an electric vehicle – his twenty-five years in the motor industry had convinced him that an electric car was never going to happen – Sinclair