Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman is the creator of Lotus cars.

Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman was born to Stanley and Mary Chapman on 19 May 1928 in Richmond, Surrey, England. When Colin was two years old, the family moved into The Railway Hotel in Hornsey, North London, which Colin's father operated. Later, the family moved to North Finchley, but his father continued to run The Railway Hotel.

In 1945, Colin went to University College in London to study engineering. While in college, he met Colin Dare, with whom he went into the business of selling cars. When the British government stopped issuing gas rations, the two Colins were put out of business and left with a car that Chapman converted into a trials car which eventually became the Lotus Mark 1.
After graduation, Colin Chapman joined the Royal Air Force and while earning his wings, he was working on the Lotus Mark

After the RAF, he took a job at the British Aluminum Company as a structural engineer and, in his off-hours, he built race cars. Later, he moved production to the stables behind The Railway Hotel and, soon afterward, formed The Lotus Engineering Company as a partnership with Michael Allen.

After the Mark 6 prototype was destroyed in an accident, Michael Allen left and Colin's girlfriend Hazel Williams stepped in. Colin and Hazel eventually married and the Lotus Engineering Company continued making racing cars. In 1955, Colin quit his day job at British Aluminum and was joined by Mike Costin. While continuing to build his own cars, he, along with Frank Costin, designed a F1 World Championship-winning Vanwall and worked on a BRM F1 car.

In late 1959, Colin moved production to a new factory in Cheshunt and started production of the Elite, which lost money, followed by the Elan, which turned Lotus into a profitable car company. In 1966-67, Lotus moved again to a new factory in Norfolk and Colin had his dream house built in East Carleton. While he was succeeding in building road cars, he was also achieving great success in Formula One. Team Lotus won three Constructor's Championships and over 30 Championship events. Team Lotus also won the Indianapolis 500.

There were hard moments, though. Many Team Lotus drivers had been killed, including Jim Clark, whom Colin was particularly close with.

After setting Lotus Cars into a program to move upmarket and getting it through the tough period that followed, Colin grew tired of the annoyances inherent in running a car company, particularly in light of new automotive regulations that were being enacted worldwide in the 1970s, and he passed control of Lotus Cars to others. Instead, he spent his time on Team Lotus, which he moved from down the road from Lotus Cars to an English country house, Ketteringham Hall, a few miles away. He also played his boats and his plane. He also got Lotus Cars involved with John DeLorean's plans to build a stainless steel sports car.

The start of the 1980s was probably the toughest period that Lotus ever encountered. In Formula One, Team Lotus was not winning races and Colin's latest creation, the twin chassis Type 88, had been banned and Colin spent a lot of time fighting the ban. Some say that this killed his interest in Formula One. At Lotus Cars, a worldwide recession hit Lotus sales hard, because of a distribution problem, there were no sales in the U.S. and Lotus' creditors were getting worried. Also, Lotus' name was being drawn into the scandal which followed the collapse of DeLorean. And, Colin Chapman died of a heart attack on 16 December, 1982 at his home in East Carleton.