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 Elan of the Elan in 1995, Lotus sold its production rights to Kia Motors, which produced its own version. Outwardly, the Kia Elan looks almost identical to the original. The most obvious difference are the Kia-designed taillights which replaced the Renault Alpine rear lights of the original. Kia Motech (Kia Motor-technology) produced the car (in Ansan, South Korea) from 1996 to 1999 as the Kia Elan for the Korean market, using a 1.8 L T8D engine instead of the Isuzu 1.6 turbo-charged unit. In the Japanese market, the car was sold as the Vigato. A new Lotus Elan was announced at