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 to increase the interior dimensions considerably to meet the car's maxim that it "must be capable of transporting two adults and two children 1,000 miles in comfort with their luggage"". While the Elan ceased production in 1973 the Elan +2 continued to be produced until 1975, eventually being replaced by the Elite II and Lotus Eclat. Aside from the increase in size necessary to accommodate two additional seats, the design of the Elan +2 was extremely similar to the two seater Elan. The concept of a backbone chassis with fibreglass body, powered by a Ford UK-derived drive train was maintained.