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 Esprit Lotus Esprit The Lotus Esprit is a sports car that was built by Lotus Cars at their Hethel factory in the United Kingdom between 1976 and 2004. It was among the first of designer Giorgetto Giugiaro's polygonal "folded paper" designs. In 1970 Tony Rudd, who had arrived at Lotus the previous year, proposed two new model development projects. The first, Project M50, resulted in the 1974 Elite. The second, Project M70, meant to develop a successor to the Europa which, like the Europa, was to be a two-door fixed-head mid-engined coupé. A meeting between Colin Chapman and Giugiaro was arranged