In November 2018 I had a visit from YouTubers Neil (Retro Man Cave) and Ryan (EV Opinion) who were keen to come and take a look at the C5. Neil has a channel dedicated to retro computers and hardware. Ryan has a channel with videos about EV’s (electric vehicles). So they each had a different angle and different questions about my machine.

We did a short interview about the Sinclair C5 and then took it out for a ride. The cold and damp November day highlighted one of the C5’s shortcomings: it is a bit miserable in typical British winter weather. The C5 is certainly a fair weather machine.

We then took the C5 to the Milton Keynes “EV Experience Centre”. This is a brand-neutral car showroom which allows customers to get general advice on EV’s as well as short test drives or week long car loans. Of course the C5 was an early example of a consumer EV, so it was an appropriate setting for some more questions and discussion.

Neil’s (Retro Man Cave) video is here:

Ryan’s (EV Opinion) video is here:

And you can find the EV Experience Centre website here.

Reception

The videos seem to have gone down well with the channels’ subscribers. The EV Opinion viewers had harsher criticism with many thinking the C5 a bad idea. Retro Man Cave viewers were a bit kinder to the C5, perhaps as the Sinclair brand is so well respected in the retro computer community.

The videos were picked up and a short blog post appeared on Hackaday in December 2018:

1985 Electric Vehicle Restoration