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 Proton, a Malaysian car company listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. Presently organised as Group Lotus plc, the business is divided into Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering. As well as sports car manufacture, the company also acts as an engineering consultancy, providing engineering development—particularly of suspension—for other car manufacturers. Lotus's powertrain department is responsible for the design and development of the 4-cylinder Ecotec engine found in many of GM's Vauxhall, Opel, Saab, Chevrolet and Saturn cars. The US Lotus Elise and Exige models used the 1.8L VVTL-i I4 from Toyota's late Celica GT-S and the Matrix XRS both of