The company was formed as Lotus Engineering Ltd. by engineer Colin Chapman, a graduate of University College, London, in 1952. The first factory was in old stables behind the Railway Hotel in Hornsey. Team Lotus, which was split off from Lotus Engineering in 1954, was active and competitive in Formula One racing from 1958 to 1994.

The company moved to a purpose built factory at Cheshunt in 1959 and since 1966 the company has occupied a modern factory and road test facility at Hethel, near Wymondham.

Chapman died of a heart attack in 1982, at the age of 54,  the carmaker built tens of thousands of successful racing and road cars and won the Formula One World Championship seven times. At the time of his death he was linked with the DeLorean scandal over the use of government subsidies for the production of the De Lorean DMC-12 for which Lotus had designed the chassis.

Lotus at Cheshunt
The new factory at Cheshunt was needed to assemble the revolutionary new Lotus Elite, a two seater coupe with integral glassfibre body/chassis. Lotus entered Formula 1 in 1958 and by 1960 with their first rear-engined car, the Eighteen, a Lotus won its first grand prix, driven by Stirling Moss at Monaco.

The Lotus Workshop at Cheshunt

The Lotus main buliding at Cheshunt is now a plastics factory and the building where Lotus Components resided is now a fitness center (Monster Gym). The buildings as such seem unaltered, even the winch where they lowered the cars from the first floor remains, as does the ramp of the Lotus factory.

You can learn more about Lotus at Cheshunt and see exclusive images of the cars in the workshop on our website later this year…

Lotus to return to Formula 1 for the 2010 championship.