Ron Hickman

[DJ908]

Some years ago I wandered into Fazazz what was then regarded as the premier shop here in Christchurch New Zealand for all things related to motoring. Gavin the shop owner and Derrick who ran the shop were talking to someone I had never seen before. I was greeted with a conversation which started with;

“…we’ve just been talking about you and telling Ron Hickman here, that you have got one……”

And before they had the time to say that it was a Lotus Elan I interjected and said;

“No, two”!

There was a pause and both Gavin and Derrick looked on with puzzled frowns on the faces and I said;

“Workmates”!

Ron burst into a huge smile while the puzzled look continued on the faces of the other two. Then he explained that he made his fortune from workmates and not from designing Lotus Elans. We chattered on for some minutes for he was then restoring an Elan of his own and we discussed the fit of the doors on my car and how he lamented that Lotus was too miserable at the time to rework the Elan door moulds to make them fit properly.

Mine still do not fit properly but I guess that is part of the character of the car.

[tvacc]

Yes, Ron was a wonderful person. I also spent a long time talking to Ron at a Lotus Owners Gathering. He told me there were 3 molds. One was pretty good, 2nd was ok and the 3rd was the worse. He said he went down to the floor one day and found the lads spending hours trying to fix the doors. The company decision was to send the cars out as they were. Ron came up to see me as I had arrived at LOG driving my Caterham in the pouring rain with no hood. He wanted to ask me if I would buy a hardtop for the Caterham if one was available. We discussed that for a while but then spent the next hour or so talking about Elans. Years later, after he passed, I read a story about how he wanted to design and build a hardtop for Caterham until he found out how many cars they build a year. Ron was man interested in volume and volume at Caterham was just not what he expected. Those few hours speaking to Ron I consider to be one of the high points of my Lotus Life.

[DavidLB]

Ron sent me his drawings for the hardtop etc. I think i still have them somewhere. I spent many an evening drinking his whiskey when overnight in jersey. David

[Matt Elan]

Incidentally, Ron's wife had donated Ron's archive on his Lotus year to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. You can make an appointment to see the documents and have a sift through them - be warned there is a lot! The staff at the NMM are very friendly and accommodating and they have desks available for research.

[Elan45]

Yes, a very neat library. I've been there twice, to do research on my Eleven and my Falcon Bodied A-H Sprite. (16th OA 1960 Le Mans 24hr).

I've met Mr Hickman too, in fact, I'm the one who brought up the question at one of the LOGs about the 1st Elans having the little flat deck lid, where the Coupes and S3-4 DHCs went back to the pleasing and water shedding deck that adorned the Elite.

Roger

[The Veg]

I wish I could have met him. The previous owner of my car met him at a LOG and she told me that followed him into the gent's to corner him and ask him about why the Plus 2 didn't have cup-holders. All in good fun of course!