The C65 was originally conceived about '88 ,89. They put a person on it that nobody wanted to work with, and let him alone on the project. Bil Herd wanted to come back to CBM and actually finish the C65, but he was told "That would not be a good Idea", for he had a reputation of butting heads with management just to get it out the door..
Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. The 8 bit erra was dead by the time it was ready. It would have only sold to the same market that wants it today. The CBM Die-hards. If it would have come out in 1985-'86, it would have had a chance to make a dent it the market, and really paved the way for 16bit computing, but as all things at Commodore,the management was 4 years behind.