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
Hyundai Elantra and became the 5th best-selling car in the South Korean market. The sales were 5,488 cars. Mitsubishi Motors Australia complained that the Hyundai Elantra was too close to the Elante trim level, which was last used on the 1991 Magna. The British Lotus and the South Korean Kia said that the Elantra name was too close to the Lotus Elan and its Kia counterpart. In 2001, both the Elan and the Elante had ceased production but the Avante's renaming remained necessary as Audi owned the Avant name in Europe. There are also disputes about the chassis codes for the 1996–2000