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On the 10th of January 2025 it was the 40th anniversary of the Sinclair C5. What is known to many as an infamous british failure is, to me, just that big white tricycle that fits awkwardly in my garage. My C5 is a great thing to tinker with and a vehicle I do actually drive on a pretty regular basis (weather permitting). So when a group of C5 owners wanted to get together in the south of England and go for a beach-side ride, you bet I was in.
The ride itself was pretty normal, save for the fact there were ~28 of us instead of the usual 2. We traveled along from bournemouth prom cafe to poole and back, and then past to the little coffee stall at Southborne.
As always, the reactions of the general public when they see people driving sinclair c5s is always fantastic, the best part of a trip is listening to the little comments you overhear as you drive away. We often say we should make a bingo card of the remarks we hear most frequently - "Ooh a citron c5", "is that a replica?" and "They'd make more sense today" are common occurrences.
One of the many people we rode past that day was BBC Radio Solent Presenter Steve Harris, who happened to be in his beach hut on that (rather brisk) Saturday. Clearly a man who is never fully out of 'work mode', Steve got in touch and asked if he could interview me on the radio. So at 7:50am on Monday, I jumped on-air to chat to him about what we were doing any why:
What fun! Steve was great and the whole experience of being on live radio was a new one for me. It was kinda funny to me that I was connected to the radio station via a whatsapp call. I'm not saying I expected the van with a satellite dish outside my house, but for some reason the reality seemed too simple.
Anyway, the interview was fun and Steve was great, but what was almost more fun was getting another phone call an hour or so later asking for me to give another interview, this time with BBC Radio Ulster. What they wanted with a story about the preservation of the sinclair C5 I wasn't sure, but of course I said yes. Another hour or so and I was on air again for the second time that day:
I think the second interview was my favourite, it was "a slightly more silly vibe than BBC Radio Solent" (direct quote from the producer who called me) and I think
that matches up with the whole C5 owner thing anyway, it is all a bit silly. Connor was a great host and I could actually see him during this interview, owing to them
using Zoom over Whatsapp. He also genuinely seemed like he could've talked to me for hours about it.
Up until the interview started, I was still wondering why BBC Radio Ulster wanted to talk to me.
Turns out their topic for the morning was "Things that were ahead of their time", and I think the sinclair C5 is perhaps king of that category.