Sinclair C5 exactly this tack when he purchased Sinclair Vehicles' remaining stock, saying that his company would market them as "a sophisticated toy": "If you were a little boy, wouldn't you want your parents to get you one this Christmas?" His strategy was notably successful; Ellar sold nearly 7,000 C5s at up to £700 each, far more (and at a higher price) than Sinclair had ever managed. Some commentators attributed the C5's failure to problems with Sinclair's marketing strategy; only a year after the demise of Sinclair Vehicles, the "Globe and Mail" newspaper called it "one of the great marketing bombs of
Sinclair C5 a snow- and ice-covered hill – later prompted criticism even from Sinclair executives, who admitted off the record that spring conditions might have been better for a vehicle with so little protection from the British climate. The "Financial Times" called it "the worst possible timing to launch what was proclaimed to be a serious, road-going vehicle". Sinclair's biographer Rodney Dale describes it as "a calculated (or miscalculated) risk", pointing out that production was already underway, details were beginning to leak out to the press and "the launch could hardly have been held up until the possibility of a bright spring