[HN Gopher] Sinclair C5
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Sinclair C5
Author : jszymborski
Score : 80 points
Date : 2026-01-10 20:31 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| leke wrote:
| Way ahead of its time. Some kind of rain cover and maybe flip the
| wheel combination around and it would make a sweet ev for the
| bike lanes.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| There was a rain cover available, but it was a little...basic:
|
| https://95octane.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/sinclair_c5_...
| ikidd wrote:
| >The driver sits in a recumbent position in an open cockpit,
| steering via a handlebar that is located under the knees. A power
| switch and front and rear brake levers are positioned on the
| handlebar. As a supplement to or replacement for electric power,
| the C5 can also be propelled via bicycle-style pedals located at
| the front of the cockpit. The maximum speed of an unmodified C5
| is 15 miles per hour (24 km/h). At the rear of the vehicle is a
| small luggage compartment with a capacity of 28 litres (1 cu
| ft).[5] As the C5 does not have a reverse gear, reversing
| direction is done by getting out, picking up the front end and
| turning it around by hand.
|
| Well, hard to believe this was a flop.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Presumably this is sarcasm but the C5 as described seems
| basically to be an _electric recumbent cargo bike_. That is, a
| vehicle that is fairly common today in big northern European
| cities, used for deliveries and sometimes even family
| transport.
| thmsths wrote:
| The C5 seems like a pretty good deal: PS399 (equivalent to
| PS1247 today according to the BoE inflation calculator) for
| an electric trike with storage made in the UK. In contrast,
| finding a made in china cargo bike for that price seems
| impossible.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| It was the 1980s. People wanted to see products that looked
| like Star Wars props.
|
| https://www.carrozzieri-italiani.com/listing/italdesign-mach...
| stefan_ wrote:
| > The maximum legal speed of the vehicle would be limited to
| only 15 miles per hour (24 km/h); it could not weigh any more
| than 60 kilograms (130 lb), including the battery; and its
| motor could not be rated at any more than 250 watts.
|
| It's interesting that these are still essentially the
| regulations for e-bikes in the EU today, I guess slightly
| relaxed (25km/h, 250W average only but can peak higher).
| esperent wrote:
| Looking at the photos and trying to understand how a person would
| comfortably drive it, I figured I must be missing something.
|
| So I looked up photos with a person inside and no, it really is
| that bad [0]. Pure form over function.
|
| Uncomfortable, yes. That's bad enough. But you hands are far back
| under your center of gravity. Any crash over a few km/hr is going
| to result in a faceplant because there's no way you'll bring your
| hands forward fast enough. Top speed of 24km/hr is enough to
| cause serious... death by head trauma.
|
| [0]
| https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/g...
| appplication wrote:
| C5, named after the vertebra most likely to snap in a low speed
| collision with a moderate caused pothole.
| riffraff wrote:
| It's a recumbent trike, this sort of design seems to still
| exist today, so presumably it works somehow.
|
| https://www.rad-innovations.com/blog-our-news/about-recumben...
| pjmlp wrote:
| Quite common to spot them in Germany or Netherlands.
| esperent wrote:
| Just because they're niche popular doesn't mean they're a
| good idea. That said the position of the people on those
| trikes doesn't look nearly as bad as the C5.
|
| I have occasionally seen continental European tourists on
| those in Ireland. They struck me as a really bad idea for
| another reason. They're very low to the ground, which is
| probably good for aerodynamics but terrible for visibility
| for people in trucks, busses etc. There's no way I would
| cycle one on any normal road.
|
| Some people do have a small flag sticking up but I don't
| think that's enough.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Bad infrastructure doesn't make the bikes bad. People ride
| these just fine in the Netherlands, even if they're not
| that common.
| intrasight wrote:
| Just like with bicycles, they can be made much more
| visible. I've seen recumbents that are much more visible
| than your average bicycle.
| alexfoo wrote:
| The proliferation and arms race of increasingly huge
| vehicles with poor visibility hasn't taken hold in Europe
| yet, but I'm not so sure that will be the case in 5 or 10
| years.
|
| We have our fair share of Range Rovers and other SUV shaped
| things but the bonnet heights are still not that far above
| average adult waist height.
|
| Vehicles like Ford/RAM/GMC trucks with hood heights at or
| above eye level of an average adult just aren't a common
| sight at all.
|
| Buses and trucks often have better visibility than those as
| they have a shorter distance between driver and the front
| of the vehicle. There are still huge blind spots though.
|
| Most European countries have a much greater affinity and
| acceptance of cyclists than my experience of the US.
|
| Cycling has its risks but it's far less dangerous than
| being sedentary. The UK has around 24 cyclist deaths per
| year per billion miles traveled. The US figure is about 4
| times as high as the UK per distance traveled.
|
| In the UK it's more dangerous to be a pedestrian (27
| pedestrian deaths per year per billion miles traveled) yet
| people fixate on cycling being inherently dangerous whilst
| pedestrian deaths are just kind of an accepted consequence
| of cars driving right next to where pedestrians walk.
| owlninja wrote:
| I always thought that a lot of the riders on these had back
| issues or something else that would make a long ride on a
| normal bicycle painful or hard to do.
| toast0 wrote:
| There's a subtle difference. The vehicles in your picture
| have moved the controls closer to the operator's hips; a
| little bit rearward, upward, and outward. This is probably a
| much more comfortable experience, especially for people whose
| arms are short relative to their torso length.
|
| The wrist position is also rotated 90 degrees which looks a
| lot more comfortable with arms at sides IMHO.
| seanhunter wrote:
| Recumbent bikes/trikes and C5s have a common (very serious in
| my view) safety flaw which is they have a very low visual
| profile at the eye level of most drivers, which makes them (I
| think) really hazardous in dense city traffic. The first
| thing your average West London driver taking their kids
| to/from school, ballet classes, drama club etc would see of a
| recumbent bike of any kind is when they had already gone
| under the wheels of their gigantic Chelsea tractor.
| robin_reala wrote:
| I don't think I've even seen a recumbent cyclist in real
| life without a high red or neon yellow flag on the back of
| the bike, presumably for exactly this reason.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > how a person would comfortably drive it
|
| Just like a kayak, but without the rowing.
| 3ple_alpha wrote:
| Execution could have been a bit better but ultimately it's really
| hard to make electric vehicles with 1980s battery technology.
| Just about the only successful EV of the era was the golf cart
| and that's very niche.
|
| Electric moped was right idea but some 30 years ahead of its
| time.
| nospice wrote:
| Probably also the wrong country. I can imagine something like
| C5 taking off in the SF Bay Area. In the UK, you have something
| like 160 rainy days a year. People bike over there, but this
| somehow feels worse.
| eterm wrote:
| There was one much more successful EV, although it too was
| niche: The UK had "perhaps 40,000 milk floats" in the 1970s and
| 1980s before supermarkets took over as primary milk
| distributors. ( https://zavanak.com/transport-topics/british-
| electric-cv-his... )
| dboreham wrote:
| When I was a kid in Edinburgh no milk was delivered by ICE
| vehicle. It was either electric or horse. Also Sean Connery's
| first job..
| nickcw wrote:
| The Sinclair C5 battery charger and battery was ahead of its
| time. I remember my Dad (who was something of a lead acid
| battery nerd) being very excited about it.
|
| The battery in the C5 was designed to be run to 0% charge which
| would kill most lead acid batteries in no time, but if I
| remember rightly the charger would recover them by putting
| quite high voltages across them to de-sulphate them. Or
| something like that (not a lead acid battery nerd :-).
| Someone wrote:
| > Just about the only successful EV of the era was the golf
| cart and that's very niche.
|
| Electric milk floats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float)
| were common even in the 1960s, and, I think, decades earlier.
|
| Electric forklifts have been common since a long time, too. Not
| having an exhaust is a big advantage when operating one
| indoors.
|
| (Both also fairly nice, but milk floats where used on public
| roads and fork lifts require much more power than golf carts)
| aaronrobinson wrote:
| This is the same guy that created the ZX81 (that I learned to
| code on) and the ZX Spectrum. He changed my life.
| dboreham wrote:
| He hired the people who created those things.
| aaronrobinson wrote:
| What a strange response.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Wasn't it possible to store these by standing them on end?
| Angostura wrote:
| If I recall correctly they _did_ did one niche application. Some
| people used them to trundle up and down the decks of oil tankers
| (a bicycle would seem better to me).
| chihuahua wrote:
| Given that there are no hills to climb on an oil tanker, and
| the distances involved are a few hundred meters at a time (at
| most), a bicycle seems so much better, cheaper, simpler,
| doesn't need charging, easier to fix.
| bitwize wrote:
| Sir Clive's Dymaxion Car. Doomed to similar failure. I love it
| for that reason alone.
| woleium wrote:
| Yes! the weird Buckminster designed vehicle which had the
| driver so far ahead if the front axle it was unnerving to drive
| tim333 wrote:
| It's not far off the speed and range of my ebike which works well
| as transport in London. I wouldn't want to be that low down
| visibility wise though. On the ebike my head is a little higher
| than if I were standing which works quite well.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| see also this (it also mentions the C5 but focuses on pedal-
| driven velomobiles) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velomobile
| robinmacharg wrote:
| Spitting Image nailed the mentioned criticisms back in the day:
| https://youtu.be/YLRTDy3Pvhw?si=UpBb9VBvSTcCjEEF
| brohee wrote:
| It's a collectible but the remaining ones can likely be improved
| very much with modern eBike parts, lighter and more powerful
| motor and batteries...
| chihuahua wrote:
| However, 3 wheelers quickly reach their limitations in turns,
| since you can't lean to balance. So making a C5 go much faster
| than its original top speed could be risky.
| lukevp wrote:
| Could the car lean if it had electric suspension? Is this a
| fundamental limitation of a 3 wheeler with 2 in the back or
| is it just difficult to achieve?
| Someone wrote:
| It certainly could.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carver_(automotive_company).
| Got raving reviews from testers
|
| _"On BBC 's Top Gear programme in 2002, Jeremy Clarkson
| said, "I have to say, absolute hand on heart, I've never
| had so much fun in a car, really and truthfully, and I
| don't think I'd ever tire of it.""_
|
| There's an electric two-seater now. Around EUR12k
| pmyteh wrote:
| I don't think the speed would be an enormous problem; the
| legal (powered) speed limit for e-bikes in the UK is
| essentially the same as when the C5 was new, at 25km/h. So as
| long as you stick with a stock EU/UK standard controller you
| should be fine.
|
| And you'd get a fantastic amount more grunt uphill and a
| longer range with a modern battery and motor.
| nickcw wrote:
| The C5 really was a marvel of design for 1985. Sinclair really
| went all in on it.
|
| - Polypropylene injection-molded bodywork (largest of its kind in
| 1985)
|
| - Lotus-designed suspension and handling geometry
|
| - Electric motor based on a modified torpedo cooling fan design
|
| - Handlebar-mounted electronics with LED range and load
| indicators
|
| - Custom deep-cycle lead-acid battery technology with 'smart'
| charging
|
| - Toothed-belt drive system for quiet operation
|
| It really was like seeing a bit of design from the future.
| Commercially a failure, alas.
| robrain wrote:
| As a child in the 80s I was exceedingly nerdy. My loving and
| generous parents did nothing to discourage that. Indeed they
| encouraged my nascent interest in computers by regularly updating
| my ZX computers (80->81->Spectrum->48K etc.) and then Acorn
| computers. All gratefully received.
|
| But then I was offered a C5 as a potential Christmas gift. "It's
| a Sinclair, you like those" was the approximate reasoning. But
| even I had to draw the line. There's only so much bullying one
| person can take. I was used to being laughed at for my fashion
| choices, my social awkwardness and my lack of sporting prowess.
| But a C5 would have been the final nail in the coffin.
|
| Ungrateful? Certainly. But I think I made the right choice.
| alexfoo wrote:
| > As a child in the 80s I was exceedingly nerdy. My loving and
| generous parents did nothing to discourage that. Indeed they
| encouraged my nascent interest in computers by regularly
| updating my ZX computers (80->81->Spectrum->48K etc.) and then
| Acorn computers. All gratefully received.
|
| Yeah, I reminisced a bit in the thread about his death 5 years
| ago.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28564456
|
| I did also get to play around in a C5 that they had at a
| secondary school that my father was teaching at (either
| Bassingbourn Village College or Collenswood School in
| Stevenage), must have been some time in the late 80s.
|
| > There's only so much bullying one person can take. I was used
| to being laughed at for my fashion choices, my social
| awkwardness and my lack of sporting prowess.
|
| School in the UK in the late 80s was brutal.
| jamiecurle wrote:
| That cane was no fun. It was around for one year when I was
| in juniors before it got banned. I can remember as clear as
| the day at the start of September us new boys were taken into
| the toilet by the headmaster (lovely guy actually) and given
| a demonstration of what waited for us should we mis-behave.
| Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was in the charts and it was a
| perfect experience of 1980s english schooling.
| igrunert wrote:
| If you're in Denver, Colorado you can see one in-person at The
| Forney Museum of Transportation.
| parkersweb wrote:
| Last year they celebrated the 40th anniversary with a group ride
| through Cambridge city centre:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98jr0145rgo
| butz wrote:
| Time to watch Micro Men (2009) one more time.
| Lio wrote:
| Just in case you want to:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM&pp=ygUJTWljcm8gbWV...
| Lio wrote:
| My school got given one and the science teacher swapped the
| motorcycle battery for a car battery.
|
| It was great going around the playground.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Bizarre; this was originally posted 5 days ago (as evidenced by
| clicking on the poster's submission history [0]), but timestamps
| on the submission and on comments throughout the post show 11
| hours ago. @dang, is this a bug in HN software? I was feeling
| some serious deja vu scrolling seeing this and scrolling through
| the comments.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jszymborski
| pansa2 wrote:
| Second-chance pool
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
| oniony wrote:
| I went to a general auction in Croydon, UK in the 1990s with my
| parents. One of the lots was an old C5. It sold for PS11. I still
| regret not pushing my parents to bid for it.
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