When I was at school, I was Sinclair kid. A ZX81 followed by a Spectrum meant my computer heart belonged to Clive. How I, and the other Sinclair kids looked down on those with Commodore computers. (We all looked down on the BBC Micro owner, whose parents were teachers, although we secretly envied them Elite). Our computers had more games, and could be programmed in proper BASIC.
They pointed out their computers had proper keyboards, sound chips and more colours per sprite.
And so it was that I was fascinated when Sir Clive launched his electric vehicle, the C5. OK, it was ahead of its time, and derided by the press, but I've always wanted one. The only thing stopping me was sensible storage arrangements.
Until I visited the NEC Classic Car show this year. A kind person on the C5 display let me sit in his machine.
I can get my feet on the pedals, but only just. Actually rotating them would be another matter. I'm just too tall.
And now very sad.
The C5 was made in the Hoover Ltd factory at Merthyr Tydfil. I was a Hoover service engineer and we were all trained to repair them, though only a few actually got to do it. I wasn't one of them.
ReplyDeleteI felt much the same way when I sat in a Caterham 7. My size 11s could push all 3 pedals together but didn't have space to separately, and my head poked comically over the windscreen.
ReplyDeleteThey mechanics make a good basis for a 5" or 71/4" loco. A few have been built using them.
ReplyDelete