The timing and location of the launch event – in the middle of winter, on the top of 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.[1] The Financial Times called it "the worst possible timing to launch what was proclaimed to be a serious, road-going vehicle".[47] Sinclair's biographer Rodney Dale describes it as "a calculated (or miscalculated) risk", observing 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 day".