Sinclair C5 The C5 would be available initially by mail order at a cost of £399 and would subsequently be sold via high-street stores. Sinclair issued a glossy sales brochure characterising the vehicle as a part of an ongoing exercise in "cutting giants down to size, turning impersonal tyrants into personal servants". The brochure highlighted Sinclair's achievements in producing affordable pocket calculators, home computers, and pocket televisions and declared, "with the C5, Sinclair Vehicles puts personal, private transport back where it belongs – in the hands of the individual." The photographs accompanying the text showed housewives and teenagers driving the C5 to
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