However, it was felt that something was lacking in the design and a 23-year-old industrial designer, Gus Desbarats, was brought in to refine the shell's appearance.[28] He had won a Sinclair-sponsored electric vehicle design competition at the Royal College of Art and was hired on his graduation to set up an in-house car design studio at Sinclair's Metalab in Cambridge, of which he became the first employee.[29] It was not only Desbarats' first project but, as he later said, "day one of my working life", when he turned up at Sinclair's premises. He was taken aback when he saw the C5 for the first time, as he had been expecting a "proper" electric car. He said later that he thought "the concept looked futuristic but was short on practicality.