Ron Hickman Ron Hickman Ronald Price Hickman OBE (21 October 1932 – 17 February 2011) was a South African-born, Jersey-based car designer and inventor who designed the original Lotus Elan, the Lotus Elan +2 and the Lotus Europa, as well as the Black & Decker Workmate. Hickman was born in Greytown, Natal, South Africa, where he worked as a courthouse clerk after leaving high school. He moved to London in the 1950s where he was employed by a music publisher. From 1954 Hickman worked for the Ford Motor Company at Dagenham first as a clay modeller and later he helped to style
Lotus Elan used in a number of Ford and Lotus production and racing models. Lotus reported different power outputs for the Twin Cam engine during the production of the Elan. Prior to the release of the Sprint the following outputs were reported in the Workshop Manual: Lotus marketing material from the S3 period quoted the SE variant at 115 BHP, noting high lift cams, carburetor re-jetting and a four branch exhaust. The final version of the Workshop Manual revised these numbers, as shown in the following tables. The increased power of the Sprint engine was primarily due to larger inlet valves, so