Ron Hickman the 105E Ford Anglia. He became the director of Lotus Engineering in the 1960s, designing the first Lotus Europa as part of Lotus's GT40 project bid. He left Lotus in 1967. Hickman invented the wood-and-steel foldable Workmate bench after sawing through a piece of wood into a chair used as support, when making a wardrobe. His offer of a licence for the product he developed was rejected by several companies who could not see a large market for it, so Hickman sold the benches himself to professional builders at trade shows until Black & Decker saw the light in 1973
Lotus Cars likely rival for Lotus if its plans go through, has also turned to contractors for parts of the all-electric Roadster. However, Tesla bought the chassis for their 2,500 Roadsters from Lotus because of the heavy weight of the batteries in an EV and Lotus's widely known low weight and sharp handling characteristics. While only 10% of the parts of the Tesla Roadster were shared with the Lotus Elise, Lotus was responsible for approximately 40% of the overall content of the car. Lotus Cars were awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise for contribution to International Trade, one of 85 companies receiving